DEDICATION TO CORNELIUS NEPOS
To thee (Cornelius!); for wast ever fain
To deem my trifles somewhat boon contain;
[5] E'en when thou single 'mongst Italians found
Daredst all periods in three Scripts expound
Learned (by Jupiter!) elaborately.
Then take thee whatso in this booklet be,
Such as it is, whereto O Patron Maid
[10] To live down Ages lend thou lasting aid!
Poem 2
LESBIA'S SPARROW
Sparrow! my pet's delicious joy,
Wherewith in bosom nurst to toy
She loves, and gives her finger-tip
For sharp-nib'd greeding neb to nip,
[5] Were she who my desire withstood
To seek some pet of merry mood,
As crumb o' comfort for her grief,
Methinks her burning lowe's relief:
Could I, as plays she, play with thee,
[10] That mind might win from misery free!
[gap in text]
To me t'were grateful (as they say),
Gold codling was to fleet-foot May,
Whose long-bound zone it loosed for aye.
Poem 3
ON THE DEATH OF LESBIA'S SPARROW
Weep every Venus, and all Cupids wail,
And men whose gentler spirits still prevail.
Dead is the Sparrow of my girl, the joy,
Sparrow, my sweeting's most delicious toy,
[5] Whom loved she dearer than her very eyes;
For he was honeyed-pet and anywise
Knew her, as even she her mother knew;
Ne'er from her bosom's harbourage he flew
But 'round her hopping here, there, everywhere,
Piped he to none but her his lady fair.
[10] Now must he wander o'er the darkling way
Thither, whence life-return the Fates denay.
But ah! beshrew you, evil Shadows low'ring
In Orcus ever loveliest things devouring:
Who bore so pretty a Sparrow fro' her ta'en. [15]
(Oh hapless birdie and Oh deed of bane!)
Now by your wanton work my girl appears
With turgid eyelids tinted rose by tears.
Poem 4
ON HIS PINNACE
Yonder Pinnace ye (my guests!) behold
Saith she was erstwhile fleetest-fleet of crafts,
Nor could by swiftness of aught plank that swims,
Be she outstripped, whether paddle plied,
[5] Or fared she scudding under canvas-sail.
Eke she defieth threat'ning Adrian shore,
Dare not denay her, insular Cyclades,
And noble Rhodos and ferocious Thrace,
Propontis too and blustering Pontic bight.
[10] Where she (my Pinnace now) in times before,
Was leafy woodling on Cytrean Chine
For ever loquent lisping with her leaves.
Pontic Amastris! Box-tree-clad Cytrus!
Cognisant were ye, and you weet full well
(So saith my Pinnace) how from earliest age [15]
Upon your highmost-spiring peak she stood,
How in your waters first her sculls were dipt,
And thence thro' many and many an important strait
She bore her owner whether left or right,
Where breezes bade her fare, or Jupiter deigned [20]
At once propitious strike the sail full square;
Nor to the sea-shore gods was aught of vow
By her deemed needful, when from Ocean's bourne
Extreme she voyaged for this limpid lake.
Yet were such things whilome: now she retired [25]
In quiet age devotes herself to thee
(0 twin-born Castor) twain with Castor's twin.
Poem 5
TO LESBIA, (OF LESBOS-CLODIA?)
Love we (my Lesbia!) and live we our day,
While all stern sayings crabbed sages say,
At one doit's value let us price and prize!
The Suns can westward sink again to rise
[5] But we, extinguished once our tiny light,
Perforce shall slumber through one lasting night!
Kiss me a thousand times, then hundred more,
Then thousand others, then a new five-score,
Still other thousand other hundred store.
[10] Last when the sums to many thousands grow,
The tale let's trouble till no more we know,
Nor envious wight despiteful shall misween us
Knowing how many kisses have been kissed between us.
Poem 6
TO FLAVIUS: MIS-SPEAKING HIS MISTRESS
Thy Charmer (Flavius!) to Catullus' ear
Were she not manner'd mean and worst in wit
Perforce thou hadst praised nor couldst silence keep.
But some enfevered jade, I wot-not-what,
[5] Some piece thou lovest, blushing this to own.
For, nowise 'customed widower nights to lie
Thou 'rt ever summoned by no silent bed
With flow'r-wreaths fragrant and with Syrian oil,
By mattress, bolsters, here, there, everywhere
[10] Deep-dinted, and by quaking, shaking couch
All crepitation and mobility.
Explain! none whoredoms (no!) shall close my lips.
Why? such outfuttered flank thou ne'er wouldst show
Had not some fulsome work by thee been wrought.
Then what thou holdest, boon or bane be pleased [15]
Disclose! For thee and thy beloved fain would I
Upraise to Heaven with my liveliest lay.
Poem 7
TO LESBIA STILL BELOVED
Thou ask'st How many kissing bouts I bore
From thee (my Lesbia!) or be enough or more?
I say what mighty sum of Lybian-sands
Confine Cyrene's Laserpitium-lands
[5] 'Twixt Oracle of Jove the Swelterer
And olden Battus' holy Sepulchre,
Or stars innumerate through night-stillness ken
The stolen Love-delights of mortal men,
For that to kiss thee with unending kisses
[10] For mad Catullus enough and more be this,
Risses nor curious wight shall count their tale,
Nor to bewitch us evil tongue avail.
Poem 8
TO HIMSELF RECOUNTING LESBIA'S INCONSTANCY
Woe-full Catullus! cease to play the fool
And what thou seest dead as dead regard!
Whilme the sheeniest suns for thee did shine
When oft-a-tripping whither led the girl
[5] By us beloved, as shall none be loved.
There all so merry doings then were done
After thy liking, nor the girl was loath.
Then certs sheeniest suns for thee did shine.
Now she's unwilling: thou too (hapless!) will
[10] Her flight to follow, and sad life to live:
Endure with stubborn soul and still obdure.
Damsel, adieu! Catullus obdurate grown
Nor seeks thee, neither asks of thine unwill;
Yet shalt thou sorrow when none woos thee more;
Reprobate! Woe to thee! What life remains? [15]
Who now shall love thee? Who'll think thee fair?
Whom now shalt ever love? Whose wilt be called?
To whom shalt kisses give? whose liplets nip?
But thou (Catullus!) destiny-doomed obdure.
Poem 9
TO VERANIUS RETURNED FROM TRAVEL
Veranius! over every friend of me
Forestanding, owned I hundred thousands three,
Home to Penates and to single-soul'd
Brethren, returned art thou and mother old?
[5] Yes, thou art come. Oh, winsome news come well!
Now shall I see thee, safely hear thee tell
Of sites Iberian, deeds and nations 'spied,
(As be thy wont) and neck-a-neck applied
[10] I'll greet with kisses thy glad lips and eyne.
Oh! Of all mortal men beatified
Whose joy and gladness greater be than mine?
Poem 10
HE MEETS VARUS AND MISTRESS
Led me my Varus to his flame,
As I from Forum idling came.
Forthright some whorelet judged I it
Nor lacking looks nor wanting wit,
[5] When hied we thither, mid us three
Fell various talk, as how might be
Bithynia now, and how it fared,
And if some coin I made or spared.
"There was no cause (I soothly said)
[10] "The Praetors or the Cohort made
Thence to return with oilier head;
The more when ruled by [gap in text]
Praetor, as pile the Cohort rating."
Quoth they, "But certes as 'twas there
The custom rose, some men to bear [15]
Litter thou boughtest ?" I to her
To seem but richer, wealthier,
Cry, "Nay, with me 'twas not so ill
That, given the Province suffered, still
Eight stiff-backed loons I could not buy.' [20]
(Withal none here nor there owned I
Who broken leg of Couch outworn
On nape of neck had ever borne!)
Then she, as pathic piece became,
"Prithee Catullus mine, those same [25]
Lend me, Serapis-wards I'd hie."
[gap in text]
"Easy, on no-wise, no," quoth I,
"Whate'er was mine, I lately said
Is some mistake, my camarade
One Cinna-Gains-bought the lot, [30]
But his or mine, it matters what?
I use it freely as though bought,
Yet thou, pert troubler, most absurd,
None suffer'st speak an idle word."
Poem 11
A PARTING INSULT TO LESBIA
Furius and Aurelius, Catullus' friends,
Whether extremest Indian shore he brave,
Strands where far-resounding billow rends
The shattered wave,
[5] Or 'mid Hyrcanians dwell he, Arabs soft and wild,
Sacis and Parthians of the arrow fain,
Or where the Seven-mouth'd Nilus mud-defiled
Tinges the Main,
Or climb he lofty Alpine Crest and note
[10] Works monumental, Caesar's grandeur telling,
Rhine Gallic, horrid Ocean and remote
Britons low-dwelling;
All these (whatever shall the will design
Of Heaven-homed Gods) Oh ye prepared to tempt;
Announce your briefest to that damsel mine [15]
In words unkempt :
Live she and love she wenchers several,
Embrace three hundred wi' the like requitals,
None truly loving and withal of all
Bursting the vitals: [20]
My love regard she not, my love of yore,
Which fell through fault of her, as falls the fair
Last meadow-floret whenas passed it o'er
touch of the share.
Poem 12
TO M. ASINIUS WHO STOLE NAPERY
Marrcinus Asinius! ill thou usest
That hand sinistral in thy wit and wine
Filching the napkins of more heedless hosts.
Dost find this funny? Fool it passeth thee
[5] How 'tis a sordid deed, a sorry jest.
Dost misbelieve me? Trust to Pollio,
Thy brother, ready to compound such thefts
E'en at a talent's cost; for he's a youth
In speech past master and in fair pleasantries.
[10] Of hendecasyllabics hundreds three
Therefore expect thou, or return forthright
Linens whose loss affects me not for worth
But as mementoes of a comrade mine.
For napkins Saetaban from Ebro-land
Fabllus ent me a free giftie given [15]
Also Vernius: these perforce I love
E'en as my Veranilus and Fabllus.
Poem 13
FABULLUS IS INVITED TO A POET'S SUPPER
Thou'lt sup right well with me, Fabllus mine,
In days few-numbered an the Gods design,
An great and goodly meal thou bring wi' thee
Nowise forgetting damsel bright o' blee,
[5] With wine, and salty wit and laughs all-gay.
An these my bonny man, thou bring, I say
Thou'lt sup right well, for thy Catullus' purse
Save web of spider nothing does imburse.
But thou in countergift more loves shalt take
Or aught of sweeter taste or fairer make:
[10] I'll give thee unguent lent my girl to scent
By every Venus and all Cupids sent,
Which, as thou savour, pray Gods interpose
And thee, Fabllus, make a Naught-but-nose.
Poem 14
TO CALVUS, ACKNOWLEDGING HIS POEMS
Did I not liefer love thee than my eyes
(Winsomest Calvus!), for that gift of thine
Certs I'd hate thee with Vatinian hate.
Say me, how came I, or by word or deed,
[5] To cause thee plague me with so many a bard?
The Gods deal many an ill to such a client,
Who sent of impious wights to thee such crowd.
But if (as guess I) this choice boon new-found
To thee from "Commentator" Sulla come,
[10] None ill I hold itwell and welcome 'tis,
For that thy labours ne'er to death be doom'd.
Great Gods! What horrid booklet damnable
Unto thine own Catullus thou (perdie!)
Did send, that ever day by day die he
In Saturnalia, first of festivals. [15]
No! No! thus shall't not pass wi' thee, sweet wag,
For I at dawning day will scour the booths
Of bibliopoles, Aquinii, Caesii and
Suffenus, gather all their poison-trash
And with such torments pay thee for thy pains. [20]
Now for the present hence, adieu! begone
Thither, whence came ye, brought by luckless feet,
Pests of the Century, ye pernicious Poets.
Poem 14b
An of my trifles peradventure chance
You to be readers, and the hands of you [25]
Without a shudder unto us be offer'd
[gap in text]
Poem 15
TO AURELIUSHANDS OFF THE BOY!
To thee I trust my loves and me,
(Aurelius!) craving modesty.
That (if in mind didst ever long
To win aught chaste unknowing wrong)
[5] Then guard my boy in purest way.
From folk I say not: naught affray
The crowds wont here and there to run
Through street-squares, busied every one;
But thee I dread nor less thy penis
[10] Fair or foul, younglings' foe I ween is!
Wag it as wish thou, at its will,
When out of doors its hope fulfil;
Him bar I, modestly, methinks.
But should ill-mind or lust's high jinks
Thee (Sinner!), drive to sin so dread, [15]
That durst ensnare our dearling's head,
Ah! woe's thee (wretch!) and evil fate,
Mullet and radish shall pierce and grate,
When feet-bound, haled through yawning gate.
Poem 16
TO AURELIUS AND FURIUS IN DEFENCE OF HIS MUSE'S HONESTY
I'll . . . you twain and . . .
Pathic Aurelius! Frius, libertines!
Who durst determine from my versicles
Which seem o'er softy, that I'm scant of shame.
For pious poet it behoves be chaste
Himself; no chastity his verses need;
Nay, gain they finally more salt of wit
When over softy and of scanty shame,
Apt for exciting somewhat prurient,
[10] In boys, I say not, but in bearded men
Who fail of movements in their hardened loins.
Ye who so many thousand kisses sung
Have read, deny male masculant I be?
You twain I'll . . . and . . .
Poem 17
OF A "PREDESTINED" HUSBAND
Colony! fain to display thy games on length of thy town-bridge!
There, too, ready to dance, though fearing the shaking of crazy
Logs of the Bridgelet propt on pier-piles newly renewd,
Lest supine all sink deep-merged in the marish's hollow,
[5] So may the bridge hold good when builded after thy pleasure
Where Salisbulus' rites with solemn function are sacred,
As thou (Colony!) grant me boon of mightiest laughter.
Certain a townsman mine I'd lief see thrown from thy gangway
Hurld head over heels precipitous whelmed in the quagmire,
[10] Where the lake and the boglands are most rotten and stinking,
Deepest and lividest lie, the swallow of hollow voracious.
Witless surely the wight whose sense is less than of boy-babe
Two-year-old and a-sleep on trembling forearm of father.
He though, wedded to girl in greenest bloom of her youth-tide,
(Bride-wife daintier bred than ever was delicate kidlet, [15]
Worthier diligent watch than grape-bunch blackest and ripest)
Suffers her sport as she please nor rates her even at hair's worth,
Nowise 'stirring himself, but lying log-like as alder
Felled and o'er floating the fosse of safe Ligurian woodsman,
Feeling withal, as though such spouse he never had own'd; [20]
So this marvel o' mine sees naught, and nothing can hear he,
What he himself, an he be or not be, wholly unknowing.
Now would I willingly pitch such wight head first fro' thy bridge,
Better a-sudden t'arouse that numskull's stolid old senses,
Or in the sluggish mud his soul supine to deposit [25]
Even as she-mule casts iron shoe where quagmire is stiffest.
Poem 18
TO PRIAPUS, THE GARDEN-GOD
This grove to thee devote I give, Priapus!
Who home be Lampsacus and holt, Priapus!
For thee in cities worship most the shores
Of Hellespont the richest oystery strand.
Poem 19
To PRIAPUS
This place, O youths, I protect, nor less this turfbuilded cottage,
Roofed with its osier-twigs and thatched with its bundles of sedges;
I from the dried oak hewn and fashioned with rustical hatchet,
Guarding them year by year while more are they evermore thriving.
[5] For here be owners twain who greet and worship my Godship,
He of the poor hut lord and his son, the pair of them peasants:
This with assiduous toil aye works the thicketty herbage
And the coarse water-grass to clear afar from my chapel:
That with his open hand ever brings me offerings humble.
Hung up in honour mine are flowery firstlings of spring-tide, [20]
Wreaths with their ears still soft the tender stalklets a-crowning;
Violets pale are mine by side of the poppy-head pallid;
With the dull yellow gourd and apples sweetest of savour;
Lastly the blushing grape disposed in shade of the vine-tree.
Anon mine altar (this same) with blood (but you will be silent!) [15]
Bearded kid and anon some horny-hoofed nanny shall sprinkle.
Wherefore Priapus is bound to requite such honours by service,
Doing his duty to guard both vineyard and garth of his lordling.
Here then, O lads, refrain from ill-mannered picking and stealing:
Rich be the neighbour-hind and negligent eke his Priapus: [20]
Take what be his: this path hence leadeth straight to his ownings.
Poem 20
To PRIAPUS
I thuswise fashiond by rustic art
And from dried poplar-trunk (0 traveller!) hewn,
This fieldlet, leftwards as thy glances fall,
And my lord's cottage with his pauper garth
[5] Protect, repelling thieves' rapacious hands.
In spring with vari-coloured wreaths I'm crown'd,
In fervid summer with the glowing grain,
Then with green vine-shoot and the luscious bunch,
And glaucous olive-tree in bitter cold.
[10] The dainty she-goat from my pasture bears
Her milk-distended udders to the town:
Out of my sheep-cotes ta'en the fatted lamb
Sends home with silver right-hand heavily charged;
And, while its mother lows, the tender calf
Before the temples of the Gods must bleed. [15]
Hence of such Godhead, (traveller !) stand in awe,
Best it befits thee off to keep thy hands.
Thy cross is ready, shaped as artless yard;
"I'm willing, 'faith" (thou say'st) but 'faith here comes
The boor, and plucking forth with bended arm [20]
Makes of this tool a club for doughty hand.
Poem 21
To AURELIUS THE SKINFLINT
Aurelius, father of the famisht crew,
Not sole of starvelings now, but wretches who
Were, are, or shall be in the years to come,
My love, my dearling, fain art thou to strum.
[5] Nor privately; for nigh thou com'st and jestest
And to his side close-sticking all things questest.
'Tis vain: while lay'st thou snares for me the worst,
By . . . . I will teach thee first.
An food-full thus do thou, my peace I'd keep:
But what (ah me ! ah me !) compels me weep
[10] Are thirst and famine to my dearling fated.
Cease thou so doing while as modest rated,
Lest to thy will thou winbut . . . .
Poem 22
To VARUS ABUSING SUFFENUS
Varus, yon wight Suffenus known to thee
Fairly for wit, free talk, urbanity,
The same who scribbles verse in amplest store
Methinks he fathers thousands ten or more
[5] Indited not as wont on palimpsest,
But paper-royal, brand-new boards, and best
Fresh bosses, crimson ribbands, sheets with lead
Ruled, and with pumice-powder all well polished.
These as thou readest, seem that fine, urbane
[10] Suffenus, goat-herd mere, or ditcher-swain
Once more, such horrid change is there, so vile.
What must we wot thereof? a Droll erst while,
Or (if aught) cleverer, he with converse meets,
He now in dullness, dullest villain beats
Forthright on handling verse, nor is the wight [15]
Ever so happy as when verse he write:
So self admires he with so full delight.
In sooth, we all thus err, nor man there be
But in some matter a Suffenus see
Thou canst: his lache allotted none shall lack [20]
Yet spy we nothing of our back-borne pack.
Poem 23
TO FURIUS SATIRICALLY PRAISING HIS POVERTY
Furius ! Nor chest, nor slaves can claim,
Bug, Spider, nor e'e n hearth aflame,
Yet thine a sire and step-dame who
Wi' tooth can ever flint-food chew!
[5] So thou, and pleasant happy life
Lead wi' thy parents wooden wife.
Nor be this marvel: hale are all,
Well ye digest; no fears appal
For household-arsons, heavy ruin,
[10] Plunderings impious, poison-brewin'
Or other parlous case forlorn.
Your frames are hard and dried like horn,
Or if more arid aught ye know
By suns and frosts and hunger-throe.
Then why not happy as thou'rt hale? [15]
Sweat's strange to thee, spit fails, and fail
Phlegm and foul snivel from the nose.
Add cleanness that aye cleanlier shows
A bum than salt-pot cleanlier,
Nor ten times cack'st in total year, [20]
And harder 'tis than pebble or bean
Which rubbed in hand or crumbled, e'en
On finger ne'er shall make unclean.
Such blessings (Furius !) such a prize
Never belittle nor despise; [25]
Hundred sesterces seek no more
With wonted prayerenow's thy store!
Poem 24
TO JUVENTIUS CONCERNING THE CHOICE OF A FRIEND
O of Juventian youths the flowret fair
Not of these only, but of all that were
Or shall be, coming in the coming years,
Better waste Midas' wealth (to me appears)
[5] On him that owns nor slave nor money-chest
Than thou shouldst suffer by his love possest.
"What! is he vile or not fair?" "Yes!" I attest,
"Yet owns this man so comely neither slaves nor chest
My words disdain thou or accept at best
[10] Yet neither slave he owns nor money-chest."
Poem 25
ADDRESS TO THALLUS THE NAPERY-THIEF
Thou bardache Thallus! more than Coney's robe
Soft, or goose-marrow or ear's lowmost lobe,
Or Age's languid yard and cobweb'd part,
Same Thallus greedier than the gale thou art,
[5] When the Kite-goddess shows thee Gulls agape,
Return my muffler thou hast dared to rape,
Saetaban napkins, tablets of Thynos, all
Which (Fool!) ancestral heirlooms thou didst call.
These now unglueing from thy claws restore,
[10] Lest thy soft hands, and floss-like flanklets score
The burning scourges, basely signed and lined,
And thou unwonted toss like wee barque tyned
'Mid vasty Ocean vexed by madding wind!
Poem 26
CATULLUS CONCERNING HIS VILLA
Furius! our Villa never Austral force
B roke, neither set thereon Favonius' course,
Nor savage Boreas, nor Epeliot's strain,
But fifteen thousand crowns and hundreds twain
[5] Wreckt it, Oh ruinous by-wind, breezy bane!
Poem 27
TO HIS CUP-BOY
Thou youngling drawer of Falernian old
Crown me the goblets with a bitterer wine
As was Postumia's law that rules the feast
Than ebriate grape-stone more inebriate.
But ye fare whither please ye (water-nymphs!)
To wine pernicious, and to sober folk
Migrate ye: mere Thyonian juice be here!
Poem 28
TO FRIENDS ON RETURN FROM TRAVEL
Followers of Piso, empty band
With your light budgets packt to hand,
Vernius best! Fabllus mine!
What do ye? Bore ye enough, in fine
[5] Of frost and famine with yon sot?
What loss or gain have haply got
Your tablets? so, whenas I ranged
With Praetor, gains for loss were changed.
"O Memmius! thou did'st long and late
[10] . . me supine slow and . . . "
But (truly see I) in such case
Diddled you were by wight as base
Sans mercy. Noble friends go claim!
Now god and goddess give you grame
Disgrace of Romulus! Remus' shame! [15]
Poem 29
TO CAESAR OF MAMURRA, CALLED MENTULA
Who e'er could witness this (who could endure
Except the lewdling, dicer, greedy-gut)
That should Mamurra get what hairy Gaul
And all that farthest Britons held whilme?
[5] (Thou bardache Romulus!) this wilt see and bear?
Then art a lewdling, dicer, greedy-gut!
He now superb with pride superfluous
Shall go perambulate the bedrooms all
Like white-robed dovelet or Adonis-love.
Romulus thou bardache! this wilt see and bear?
[10] Then art a lewdling, dicer, greedy-gut!
Is't for such like name, sole Emperor thou!
Thou soughtest extreme Occidental Isle?
That this your . . . . Mentula
Millions and Milliards might at will absorb?
What is't but Liberality misplaced? [15]
What trifles wasted he, small heirlooms spent?
First his paternal goods were clean dispersed;
Second went Pontus' spoils and for the third,
Ebro-land,weets it well gold-rolling Tage.
Fear him the Gallias? Him the Britons' fear? [20]
Why cherish this ill-wight? what 'vails he do?
Save fat paternal heritage devour?
Lost ye for such a name, o puissant pair
(Father and Son-in-law), our all-in-all?
Poem 30
To ALFENUS THE PERJUROR
Alfnus! short of memory, false to comrades dearest-dear,
Now hast no pity (hardened Soul!) for friend and loving fere?
Now to betray me, now to guile. thou (traitor!) ne'er dost pause?
Yet impious feats of fraudful men ne'er force the Gods' applause:
[5] When heed'st thou not deserting me (Sad me!) in sorest scathe,
Ah say whate'er shall humans do? in whom shall man show faith?
For sure thou bad'st me safely yield my spirit (wretch!) to thee,
Lulling my love as though my life were all security.
The same now dost withdraw thyself and every word and deed
Thou suffer'st winds and airy clouds to sweep from out thy head.
But an forget thou, mindful be the Gods, and Faith in mind
[10] Bears thee, and soon shall gar thee rue the deeds by thee design'd.
Poem 31
ON RETURN TO SIRMIO AND HIS VILLA
Sirmio! of Islands and Peninsulas
Eyelet, and whatsoe'er in limpid meres
And vasty Ocean either Neptune owns,
Thy scenes how willing-glad once more I see,
[5] At pain believing Thynia and the Fields
Bithynian left, I'm safe to sight thy Site.
Oh what more blessd be than cares resolved,
When mind casts burthen and by peregrine
Work over wearied, lief we hie us home
[10] To lie reposing in the longed-for bed!
This be the single meed for toils so triste.
Hail, O fair Sirmio, in thy lord rejoice:
And ye, O' waves of Lybian Lake be glad,
And laugh what laughter pealeth in my home.
Poem 32
CRAVING IPSITHILLA'S LAST FAVOURS
ILL love my Ipsithilla sweetest, My desires and my Wit the meetest,
So bid me join thy nap o' noon!
Then (after bidding) add the boon
[5] Undraw thy threshold-bolt none dare,
Lest thou be led afar to fare;
Nay bide at home, for us prepare
Nine-fold continuous love-delights.
But aught do thou to hurry things,
[10] For dinner-full I lie aback,
And gown and tunic through I crack.
Poem 33
ON THE VIBENNII-BATH-THIEVES
OH, best of robbers who in Baths delight,
Vibennius, sire and son, the Ingle hight,
(For that the father's hand be fouler one
And with his anus greedier is the Son)
[5] Why not to banishment and evil hours
Haste ye, when all the parent's plundering powers
Are public knowledge, nor canst gain a Cent
Son! by the vending of thy pild vent.
Poem 34
HYMN TO DIANA
Diana's faith inbred we bear
Youths whole of heart and maidens fair,
Let boys no blemishes impair,
And girls of Dian sing!
[5] O great Latonian progeny,
Of greatest Jove descendancy,
Whom mother bare 'neath olive-tree,
Deep in the Delian dell;
That of the mountains reign thou Queen
[10] And forest ranges ever green,
And coppices by man unseen,
And rivers resonant.
Thou art Lucna, Juno hight
By mothers lien in painful plight,
Thou puissant Trivia and the Light [15]
Bastard, yclept the Lune.
Thou goddess with thy monthly stage,
The yearly march doth mete and guage
An d rustic peasant's messuage,
Dost brim with best o' crops, [20]
Be hailed by whatso name of grace,
Please thee and olden Romulus' race,
Thy wonted favour deign embrace,
And save with choicest aid.
Poem 35
AN INVITATION TO POET CECILIUS
Now to that tender bard, my Comrade fair,
(Cecilius) say I, " Paper go, declare,
Verona must we make and bid to New
Comum's town-walls and Larian Shores adieu;"
[5] For I determined certain fancies he
Accept from mutual friend to him and me.
Wherefore he will, if wise, devour the way,
Though the blonde damsel thousand times essay
Recall his going and with arms a-neck
[10] A-winding would e'er seek his course to check;
A girl who (if the truth be truly told)
Dies of a hopeless passion uncontroul'd;
For since the doings of the Dndymus-dame,
By himself storied, she hath read, a flame
Wasting her inmost marrow-core hath burned. [15]
I pardon thee, than Sapphic Muse more learn'd,
Damsel : for truly sung in sweetest lays
Was by Cecilius Magna Mater's praise.
Poem 36
ON "THE ANNALS "A SO-CALLED POEM OF VOLUSIUS
Volusius' Annals, paper scum-bewrayed!
Fulfil that promise erst my damsel made;
Who vowed to Holy Venus and her son,
Cupid, should I return to her anon
[5] And cease to brandish iamb-lines accurst,
The writ selected erst of bards the worst
She to the limping Godhead would devote
With slowly-burning wood of illest note.
This was the vilest which my girl could find
[10] With vow facetious to the Gods assigned.
Now, 0 Creation of the azure sea,
Holy Idalium, Urian havenry
Haunting, Ancona, Cnidos' reedy site,
Amathus, Golgos, and the tavern hight
Durrachium-thine Adrian abode [15]
The vow accepting, recognize the vowed
As not unworthy and unhandsome naught.
But do ye meanwhile to the fire be brought,
That teem with boorish jest of sorry blade,
Volusius' Annals, paper scum-bewrayed. [20]
Poem 37
TO THE FREQUENTERS OF A LOW TAVERN
Salacious Tavern and ye taverner-host,
From Pileate Brothers the ninth pile-post,
D'ye claim, you only of the, mentule boast,
D'ye claim alone what damsels be the best
To swive: as he-goats holding all the rest?
Is't when like boobies sit ye incontinent here,
One or two hundred, deem ye that I fear
Two hundred . . . . at one brunt?
Ay, think so, natheless all your tavern-front
[10] With many a scorpion I will over-write.
For that my damsel, fro' my breast took flight,
By me so lovd, as shall loved be none,
Wherefor so mighty wars were waged and won,
Does sit in public here. Ye fain, rich wights,
All woo her: thither too (the chief of slights !) [15]
All pitiful knaves and by-street wenchers fare,
And thou, (than any worse), with hanging hair,
In coney-breeding Celtiberia bred,
Egnatius! bonnified by beard full-fed,
And teeth with Spanish urine polishd. [20]
Poem 38
A COMPLAINT TO CORNIFICIUS
Cornificius! 'Tis ill with thy Catullus,
'Tis ill (by Hercules) distressfully:
Iller and iller every day and hour.
Whose soul (as smallest boon and easiest)
[5] With what of comfort hast thou deign'd console?
Wi' thee I'm angered! Dost so prize my love?
Yet some consoling utterance had been well
Though sadder 'twere than Simondean tears.
Poem 39
ON EGNATIUS OF THE WHITE TEETH
Egnatius for that owns he teeth snow-white,
Grins ever, everywhere. When placed a wight
In dock, when pleader would draw tears, the while
He grins. When pious son at funeral pile
[5] Mourns, or lone mother sobs for sole lost son,
He grins. Whate'er, whene'er, howe'er is done,
Of deed he grins. Such be his malady,
Nor kind, nor courteous-so beseemeth me
Then take thou good Egnatius, rede of mine!
[10] Wert Thou Corrupt Sabine Or A Tiburtine,
Stuffed Umbrian or Tuscan overgrown
Swarthy Lanuvian with his teeth-rows shown,
Transpadan also, that mine own I touch,
Or any washing teeth to shine o'er much,
[15] Yet thy incessant grin I would not see,
For naught than laughter silly sillier be.
Thou Celtiber art, in Celtiberia born,
Where man who's urined therewith loves a-morn
His teeth and ruddy gums to scour and score;
[20] So the more polisht are your teeth, the more
Argue they sipping stale in ampler store.
Poem 40
THREATENING RAVIDUS WHO STOLE HIS MISTRESS
What thought of folly Rvidus (poor churl!)
Upon my iambs thus would headlong hurl?
What good or cunning counsellor would fain
Urge thee to struggle in such strife insane?
[5] Is't that the vulgar mouth thy name by rote?
What will'st thou? Wishest on any wise such note?
Then shalt be noted since my love so lief
For love thou sued'st to thy lasting grief.
Poem 41
ON MAMURRA'S MISTRESS
That Ametina, worn-out whore,
Me for a myriad oft would bore,
That strumpet of th' ignoble nose,
To leman, rakehell Formian chose.
[5] An ye would guard her (kinsmen folk)
Your friends and leaches d'ye convoke:
The girl's not sound-sens'd; ask ye naught
Of her complaint: she's love-distraught.
Poem 42
ON A STRUMPET WHO STOLE HIS TABLETS
Come, Hendecasyllabics, many as may
All hither, every one that of you be!
That fulsome harlot makes me laughing-stock
And she refuses at our prayer restore
[5] Our stolen Note-books, an such slights ye bear.
Let us pursue her clamouring our demands.
"Who's she?" ye question: yonder one ye sight
Mincingly pacing mime-like, perfect pest,
With jaws wide grinning like a Gallic pup.
[10] Stand all round her dunning with demands,
"Return (O rotten whore!) our noting books.
Our noting books (O rotten whore!) return!"
No doit thou car'st? O Mire! O Stuff O' stews!
Or if aught fouler filthier dirt there be.
[15] Yet must we never think these words suffice.
But if naught else avail, at least a blush
Forth of that bitch-like brazen brow we'll squeeze.
Cry all together in a higher key
"Restore (O rotten whore!) our noting books,
[20] Our noting books (O rotten whore!) restore !"
Still naught avails us, nothing is she moved.
Now must our measures and our modes be changed
An we would anywise our cause advance.
"Restore (chaste, honest Maid!) our noting books!"
Poem 43
To MAMURRA'S MISTRESS
Hail, girl who neither nose of minim size
Owns, nor a pretty foot, nor jetty eyes,
Nor thin long fingers, nor mouth dry of slaver
Nor yet too graceful tongue of pleasant flavour,
[5] Leman to Formian that rake-a-hell.
What, can the Province boast of thee as belle?
Thee with my Lesbia durst it make compare?
O Age insipid, of all humour bare!
Poem 44
CATULLUS TO HIS OWN FARM
O Farm our own, Sabine or Tiburtine,
(For style thee "Tiburs" Who have not at heart
To hurt Catullus, whereas all that have
Wage any Wager thou be Sabine classed)
[5] But whether Sabine or of Tiburs truer
To thy suburban Cottage fared I fain
And fro' my bronchials drave that cursd cough
Which not unmerited on me my maw,
A-seeking sumptuous banquetings, bestowed.
[10] For I requesting to be Sestius' guest
Read against claimant Antius a speech,
Full-filled with poisonous pestilential trash.
Hence a grave frigid rheum and frequent cough
Shook me till fled I to thy bosom, where
[15] Repose and nettle-broth healed all my ills.
Wherefore recruited now best thanks I give
To thee for nowise punishing my sins:
Nor do I now object if noisome writs
Of Sestius hear I, but that cold and cough
[20] And rheum may plague, not me, but Sestius' self
Who asks me only his ill writs to read.
Poem 45
ON ACME AND SEPTUMIUS
To Acm quoth Septumius who his fere
Held on his bosom-" Acme', mine! next year,
Unless I love thee fondlier than before,
And with each twelve month love thee more and more,
[5] As much as lover's life can slay with yearning,
Alone in Lybia, or Hind's clime a-burning,
Be mine to encounter Lion grisly-eyed!"
While he was speaking Love on leftward side
(As wont) approving sneeze from dextral sped.
[10] But Acm backwards gently bending head,
And the love-drunken eyes of her sweet boy
Kissing with yonder rosy mouth, "My joy,"
She murmured, "my life-love Septumillus mine!
Unto one master's hest let's aye incline,
[15] As burns with fuller and with fiercer fire
In my soft marrow set, this love-desire!"
While she was speaking, Love from leftward side
(As wont) with sneeze approving rightwards hied.
Now with boon omens wafted on their way,
[20] In mutual fondness, love and loved are they.
Love-sick Septumius holds one Acm's love,
Of Syrias or either Britains high above,
Acm to one Septumius full of faith
Her love and love-liesse surrendereth.
[25] Who e'er saw mortals happier than these two?
Who e'er a better omened Venus knew?
Poem 46
HIS ADIEUX TO BITHYNIA
Now Spring his cooly mildness brings us back,
Now th' equinoctial heaven's rage and wrack
Hushes at hest of Zephyr's bonny breeze.
Far left (Catullus!) be the Phrygian leas
[5] And summery Nicaea's fertile downs:
Fly we to Asia's fame-illumined towns.
Now lust my fluttering thoughts for wayfare long,
Now my glad eager feet grow steady, strong.
O fare ye well, my comrades, pleasant throng,
[10] Ye who together far from homesteads flying,
By many various ways come homewards hieing.
Poem 47
TO PORCIUS AND SOCRATION
Porcius and Socration, pair sinister
Of Piso, scabs and starvelings of the world,
You to Fabllus and my Verianilus,
Hath dared yon snipt Priapus to prefer?
Upon rich banquets sumptuously spread
[5] Still gorge you daily while my comrades must
Go seek invitals where the three roads fork?
Poem 48
TO JUVENTIUS
Those honied eyes of thine (Juventius!)
If any suffer me sans stint to buss,
I'd kiss of kisses hundred thousands three,
Nor ever deem I'd reach satiety,
[5] Not albe denser than dried wheat-ears show
The kissing harvests our embraces grow.
Poem 49
TO MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
Most eloquent 'mid race of Romulus
That is or ever was (Marc Tullius!)
Or in the coming years the light shall see,
His thanks, the warmest, offers unto thee
[5] Catullus, poet sorriest that be,
And by such measure poet sorriest,
As thou of pleaders art the bestest best.
Poem 50
TO HIS FRIEND LICINIUS
Idly (Licinius!) we our yesterday,
Played with my tablets much as pleased us play,
In mode becoming souls of dainty strain.
Inditing verses either of us twain
[5] Now in one measure then in other line
We rang the changes amid wit and wine.
Then fared I homewards by thy fun so fired
And by thy jests (Licinius!) so inspired,
Nor food my hapless appetite availed
[10] Nor sleep in quiet rest my eyelids veiled,
But o'er the bedstead wild in furious plight
I tossed a-longing to behold the light,
So I might talk wi' thee, and be wi' thee.
But when these wearied limbs from labour free
[15] Were on my couchlet strewn half-dead to lie,
For thee (sweet wag!) this poem for thee wrote I,
Whereby thou mete and weet my cark and care.
Now be not over-bold, nor this our prayer
Outspit thou (apple of mine eyes !): we pray
[20] Lest doom thee Nemesis hard pain repay :
She's a dire Goddess, 'ware thou cross her way.
Poem 51
TO LESBIA
Peer of a God meseemeth he,
Nay passing Gods (and that can be!)
Who all the while sits facing thee
Sees thee and hears
[5] Thy low sweet laughs which (ah me!) daze
Mine every sense, and as I gaze
Upon thee (Lesbia!) o'er me strays
[gap in text]
My tongue is dulled, my limbs adown
[10] Flows subtle flame; with sound its own
Rings either ear, and o'er are strown
Mine eyes with night.
Ease has thy lot, Catullus, crost,
Ease gladdens thee at heaviest cost,
Ease killed the Kings ere this and lost the tallest towns
Poem 52
CATULLUS TO HIMSELF
What is't, Catullus? Why delay to out die?
That Wen hight Nonius sits in curule chair,
For Consulship Vatinius false doth swear;
What is't, Catullus? Why delay to out die?
Poem 53
A JEST CONCERNING CALVUS
I laughed at one 'mid Forum-crowd unknown
Who, when Vatinius' crimes in wondrous way
Had by my Calvus been explained, exposed,
His hand upraising high admiring cried
[5] "Great Gods! the loquent little Doodle-diddle!"
Poem 54
To JULIUS CAESAR(?)
The head of Otho, puniest of pates
[gap in text]
The rustic half-washt shanks of Nerius
And Libo's subtle silent fizzling-farts.
[gap in text]
I wish that leastwise these should breed disgust
[5] In thee and old Fuficius, rogue twice-cookt.
Again at these mine innocent iamb-lines
Wi' wrath be wrothest; unique Emperor!
Poem 55
OF HIS FRIEND CAMERIUS
We pray, an' haply irk it not when prayed,
Show us where shadowed hidest thou in shade!
Thee throughout Campus Minor sought we all,
Thee in the Circus, thee in each bookstall,
[5] Thee in Almighty Jove's fane consecrate.
Nor less in promenade titled from The Great
(Friend!) I accosted each and every quean,
But mostly madams showing mien serene,
For thee I pestered all with many pleas
[10] "Give me Came n us, wanton baggages!"
Till answered certain one a-baring breasts
"Lo, 'twixt these rosy paps he haply rests!"
[13] But now to find thee were Herculean feat.
[23] Not if I feigned me that guard of Crete,
Not if with Pegasan wing I sped,
[25] Or Ladas I or Perseus plumiped,
Or Rhesus borne in swifty car snow-white:
Add the twain foot-bewing'd and fast of flight,
And of the cursive' winds require the blow:
All these (Camrius!) couldst on me bestow.
[30] Tho' were I wearied to each marrow bone
And by many o' languors clean forgone
[32] Yet I to seek thee (friend!) would still assay.
[14] In such proud lodging (friend) wouldst self denay?
Tell us where haply dwell'st thou, speak outright,
Be bold and risk it, trusting truth to light,
Say do these milk-white girls thy Steps detain?
If aye in tight-sealed lips thy tongue remain,
All Amor's fruitage thou shalt cast away:
[20] Verbose is Venus, loving verbal play!
But, an it please thee, padlockt palate bear,
So in your friendship I have partner-share.
Poem 56
TO CATO, DESCRIBING A "BLACK JOKER."
O risible matter (Cato!) and jocose,
Digne of thy hearing, of thy sneering digne.
Laugh (Cato!) an thou love Catullus thine;
The thing is risible, nay, too jocose.
[5] Erstwhile I came upon a lad who a lass
Was . . . and (so please it Dion!) I
Pierced him with stiffest staff and did him die.
Poem 57
ON MAMURRA AND JULIUS CAESAR
Right well are paired these Cinaedes sans shame
Mamurra and Caesar, both of pathic fame.
No wonder! Both are fouled with foulest blight,
One urban being, Formian t'other wight,
[5] And deeply printed with indelible stain:
Morbose is either, and the twin-like twain
Share single Couchlet; peers in shallow lore,
Nor this nor that for lechery hungers more,
As rival wenchers who the maidens claim
[10] Right well are paired these Cinaedes sans shame.
Poem 58
ON LESBIA WHO ENDED BADLY
Caelius! That Lesbia of ours, that Lesbia,
That only Lesbia by Catullus loved,
Than self, far fondlier, than all his friends,
She now Where four roads fork, and wind the wynds
[5] Husks the high-minded scions Remus-sprung.
[23] Not if I feigned me that guard of Crete,
Not if with Pegasan wing I sped,
[25] Or Ladas I or Perseus plumiped,
Or Rhesus borne in swifty car snow-white:
Add the twain foot-bewing'd and fast of flight,
And of the cursive' winds require the blow:
All these (Camrius!) couldst on me bestow.
[30] Tho' were I wearied to each marrow bone
And by many o' languors clean forgone
[32] Yet I to seek thee (friend!) would still assay.
Poem 59
ON RUFA
Rufa the Bolognese drains Rufule dry,
(Wife to Menenius) she 'mid tombs you'll spy,
The same a-snatching supper from the pyre
Following the bread-loaves rolling forth the fire
[5] Till frapped by half-shaved body-burner's ire.
Poem 60
TO A CRUEL CHARMER
Bare thee some lioness wild in Lybian wold?
Or Scylla barking from low'st inguinal fold?
With so black spirit, of so dure a mould,
E'en voice of suppliant must thou disregard
In latest circumstance ah, heart o'er hard?
Poem 61
Epithalamium On Vinia And Manlius
Of Helicon-hill, O Thou that be Haunter, Urania's progeny, Who hurriest soft virginity To man, 0 Hymenaeus Hymen, 0 Hymen Hymenaeus.
About thy temples bind the bloom, Of Marjoram flow'ret scented sweet; Take flamey veil: glad hither come Come hither borne by snow-hue'd feet Wearing the saffron'd sock.
And, roused by day of joyful cheer, Carolling nuptial lays and chaunts With voice as silver ringing clear, Beat ground with feet, while brandisht flaunts Thy hand the piney torch.
For Vinia comes by Manlius woo'd, As Venus on th' Idalian crest, Before the Phrygian judge she stood And now with blessed omens blest, The maid is here to wed.
A maiden shining bright of blee, As Myrtle branchlet Asia bred, Which Hamadryad deity As toy for joyance aye befed With humour of the dew.
Then hither come thou, hieing lief, Awhile to leave th' Aonian cave, Where 'neath the rocky Thespian cliff Nymph Aganippe loves to lave In cooly waves outpoured.
And call the house-bride, homewards bring Maid yearning for new married fere, Her mind with fondness manacling, As the tough ivy here and there Errant the tree enwinds.
And likewise ye, clean virginal Maidens, to whom shall haps befall Like day, in measure join ye all Singing, 0 Hymenaeus Hymen, 0 Hymen Hymenaeus.
That with more will-full will a-hearing The call to office due, he would Turn footsteps hither, here appearing, Guide to good Venus, and the good Lover conjoining strait.
What God than other Godheads more Must love-sick wights for aid implore? Whose Godhead foremost shall adore Mankind? 0 Hymenaeus Hymen, O Hymen Hymenaeus.
Thee for his own the trembling sire Invokes, thee Virgins ever sue Who laps of zone to loose aspire, And thee the bashful bridegrooms woo With ears that long to hear.
Thou to the hand of love-fierce swain Deliverest maiden fair and fain, From mother's fondling bosom ta'en Perforce, 0 Hymenaeus Hymen 0 Hymen Hymenaeus.
Thou lacking, Venus ne'er avails While Fame approves for honesty Love-joys to lavish: ne'er she fails Thou willing:with such Deity Whoe'er shall dare compare?
Thou wanting, never son and heir The Hearth can bear, nor parents be By issue girt, yet can it bear, Thou willing:with such Deity, Whoe'er shall dare compare?
An lack a land thy sacring rite, The perfect rule we ne'er shall see Reach Earth's far bourne; yet such we sight, Thou willing:with such Deity Whoe'er shall dare compare?
Your folds ye gateways wide-ope swing! The maiden comes. Seest not the sheen Of links their splendent tresses fling? Let shame retard the modest mien.
[gap in text]
[gap in text] Who more she hears us weeps the more, That needs she must advance.
Cease raining tear-drops! not for thee, Aurunculeia, risk we deem, That fairer femininety Clear day outdawned from Ocean stream Shall ever more behold.
Such in the many-tinted bower Of rich man's garden passing gay Upstands the hyacinthine flower. But thou delayest, wanes the day: Prithee, come forth new Bride.
Prithee, come forth new Bride! methinks, Drawing in sight, the talk we hold Thou haply hearest. See the Links! How shake their locks begilt with gold: Prithee, new Bride come forth.
Not lightly given thy mate to ill Joys and adulterous delights Foul fleshly pleasures seeking still Shall ever choose he lie o' nights Far from thy tender paps.
But as with pliant shoots the vine Round nearest tree-trunk winds her way, He shall be ever twined in thine Embraces: yet, lo! wanes the day: Prithee, come forth new Bride!
Couchlet which to me and all [gap in text] With bright white bedstead foot.
What joys the lord of thee betide! What love-liesse on vaguing way 0' nights! What sweets in morning tide For thee be stored! Yet wanes the day: Prithee, come forth fresh Bride!
Your lighted links, 0 boys, wave high: I see the flamey veil draw nigh: Hie, sing in merry mode and cry "0 Hymen Hymenaeus io, 0 Hymen Hymenaeus!"
Lest longer mute tongue stays that joys In festal jest, from Fescennine, Nor yet denay their nuts to boys, He-Concubine! who learns in fine His lordling's love is fled.
Throw nuts to boys thou idle all He-Concubine! wast fain full long With nuts to play: now pleased as thrall Be thou to swell Talasios' throng: He-Concubine throw nuts.
Wont thou at peasant-girls to jape He-whore! Thy Lord's delight the while: Now shall hair-curling chattel scrape Thy cheeks: poor wretch, ah! poor and vile: He-Concubine, throw nuts.
'Tis said from smooth-faced ingle train (Anointed bridegroom!) hardly fain Hast e'er refrained; now do refrain! O Hymen Hymenaeus io, O Hymen Hymenaeus!
We know that naught save licit rites Be known to thee, but wedded wights No more deem lawful such delights. O Hymen Hymenaeus io, O Hymen Hymenaeus.
Thou too, 0 Bride, whatever dare Thy groom, of coy rebuff beware, Lest he to find elsewhither fare. O Hymen Hymenaeus io, O Hymen Hymenaeus.
Lo! here the house of high degree Thy husband's puissant home to be, Which ever shall obey thy gree. O Hymen Hymenaeus io, O Hymen Hymenaeus!
Till Time betide when eld the hoar Thy head and temples trembling o'er Make nod to all things evermore. O Hymen Hymenaeus io, 0 Hymen Hymenaeus.
O'erstep with omen meetest meet The threshold-stone thy golden feet Up, past the polisht panels fleet. O Hymen Hymenaeus io, O Hymen Hymerneus.
Within bestrewn thy bridegroom see On couch of Tyrian cramoisy All imminent awaiting thee. O Hymen Hymenaeus io, O Hymen Hymenaeus.
For in his breast not less than thine Burn high the flames that deepest shrine, Yet his the lowe far deeper lien. O Hymen Hymemeus io, O Hymen Hymenaeus.
Let fall the maid's soft arms, thou fair Boy purple-hem'd: now be thy care Her bridegroom's couch she seek and share. O Hymen Hymenaeus io, 0 Hymen Hymenaeus.
Ye wives time-tried to husbands wed, Well-known for chastity inbred, Dispose the virginette a-bed. O Hymen Hymenaeus io, 0 Hymen Hymenaeus.
Groom, now 'tis meet thou hither pace, With bride in genial bed to blend, For sheenly shines her flowery face Where the white chamomiles contend With poppies blushing red.
Yet bridegroom (So may Godhead deign Help me!) nowise in humbler way Art fair, nor Venus shall disdain Thy charms, but look! how wanes the day: Forward, nor loiter more!
No longer loitering makest thou, Now comest thou. May Venus good Aid thee when frankly takest thou Thy wishes won, nor true Love woo'd Thou carest to conceal.
Of Afric's wolds and wilds each grain, Or constellations glistening, First reckon he that of the twain To count alone were fain to bring The many thousand joys.
Play as ye please: soon prove ye deft At babying babes,'twere ill design'd A name thus ancient should be left Heirless, but issue like of kind Engendered aye should be.
A wee Torquaitus fain I'd see Encradled on his mother's breast Put forth his tender puds while he Smiles to his sire with sweetest gest And liplets half apart.
Let son like father's semblance show (Manlius!) so with easy guess All know him where his sire they know, And still his face and form express His mother's honest love.
Approve shall fair approof his birth From mother's seed-stock generous, As rarest fame of mother's worth Unique exalts Telemachus Penelope's own son.
Fast close the door-leaves, virgin band: Enow we've played. But ye the fair New-wedded twain live happy, and Functions of lusty married pair Exercise sans surcease.
Poem 62
Nuptial Song By Youths And Damsels
Epithalamium
Youths
Vesper is here, O youths, rise all; for Vesper Olympus
Scales and in fine enfires what lights so long were expected!
Time 'tis now to arise, now leave we tables rich laden,
Now shall the Virgin come; now chaunt we the Hymenaeus.
Hymen O Hymenaeus: Hymen here, O Hymenaeus!
Damsels
View ye the Youths, O Maids unwed? Then rise to withstand them:
Doubtless the night-fraught Star displays his splendour Oetean.
Sooth 'tis so; d'ye sight how Speedily sprang they to warfare?
Nor for a naught up-sprang: they'll Sing what need we to conquer.
Hymen O Hymenaeus: Hymen here, O Hymenaeus!
Youths
Nowise easy the palm for us (Companions!) be proffer'd,
Lo! now the maidens muse and meditate matter of forethought
Nor meditate they in vain; they muse a humorous something.
Yet naught wonder it is, their sprites be wholly in labour.
We bear divided thought one way and hearing in other:
Vanquish't by right we must be, since Victory loveth the heedful.
Therefore at least d'ye turn your minds the task to consider,
Soon shall begin their say whose countersay shall befit you.
Hymen O Hymenaeus: Hymen here, O Hymenaeus!
Damsels
Hesperus! say what flame more cruel in Heaven be fanned?
Thou who the girl perforce canst tear from a mother's embraces,
Tear from a parent's clasp her child despite of her clinging
And upon love-hot youth bestowest her chastest of maidenhoods!
What shall the foeman deal more cruel to city becaptured?
Hymen O Hymenaeus, Hymen here, O Hymenaeus!
Youths
Hesperus! say what flame more gladsome in Heavens be shining?
Thou whose light makes sure long-pledged connubial promise
Plighted erewhile by men and erstwhile plighted by parents.
Yet to be ne'er fulfilled before thy fire's ardours have risen!
What better boon can the gods bestow than hour so desird?
Hymen O Hymenaeus, Hymen here, O Hymenaeus!
Damsels
Hesperus! one of ourselves (Companions!) carried elsewhither
[gap in text] >
Hymen O Hymenaeus, Hymen here, O Hymenaeus!
Youths
[gap in text]
For at thy coming in sight a guard is constantly watching.
Hidden o'nights lurk thieves and these as oft as returnest,
Hesper! thou seizest them with title changed to Eous.
Pleases the bevy unwed with feigned complaints to accuse thee.
What if assail they whom their souls in secrecy cherish?
Hymen O Hymenaeus, Hymen here, O Hymenaeus!
Damsels
E'en as a flow'ret born secluded in garden enclosed,
Unto the flock unknown and ne'er uptorn by the ploughshare,
Soothed by the zephyrs and strengthened by suns and nourish't by showers
[gap in text]
Loves her many a youth and longs for her many a maiden:
Yet from her lissome stalk when cropt that flower deflowered,
Loves her never a youth nor longs for her ever a maiden:
Thus while the virgin be whole, such while she's the dearling of kinsfolk;
Yet no sooner is lost her bloom from body polluted,
Neither to youths she is joy, nor a dearling she to the maidens.
Hymen O Hymenaeus, Hymen here, O Hymenaeus!
Youths
E'en as an unmated vine which born in field of the barest
Never upraises head nor breeds the mellowy grape-bunch,
But under weight prone-bowed that tender body a-bending
Makes she her root anon to touch her topmost of tendrils;
Tends her never a hind nor tends her ever a herdsman:
Yet if haply conjoined the same with elm as a husband,
Tends her many a hind and tends her many a herdsman:
Thus is the maid when whole, uncultured waxes she aged;
But whenas union meet she wins her at ripest of seasons,
More to her spouse she is dear and less she's irk to her parents.
Hymen O Hymenaeus, Hymen here, O Hymenaeus!
Youths and Damsels
But do thou cease to resist (O Maid!) such bridegroom opposing,
Right it is not to resist whereto consigned thee a father,
Father and mother of thee unto whom obedience is owing.
Not is that maidenhood all thine own, but partly thy parents!
Owneth thy sire one third, one third is right of thy mother,
Only the third is thine: stint thee to strive with the others,
Who to the stranger son have yielded their dues with a dower!
Hymen O Hymenaeus: Hymen here, O Hymenaeus!
Poem 63
THE ADVENTURES OF ATYS
O'er high deep seas in speedy ship his voyage Atys sped
Until he trod the Phrygian grove with hurried eager tread
And as the gloomy tree-shorn stead, the she-god's home, he sought
There sorely stung with fiery ire and madman's vaguing thought,
Share he with sharpened flint the freight wherewith his form was fraught.
Then as the she-he sensed limbs were void of manly strain
And sighted freshly shed a-ground spot of ensanguined stain,
Snatched she the timbrel's legier load with hands as snowdrops white,
Thy timbrel, Mother Cybele, the firstings of thy rite,
And as her tender finger-tips on bull-back hollow rang
She rose a-grieving and her song to listening comrades sang.
"Up Gallae, hie together, haste for Cybele's deep grove,
Hie to the Dindymnean dame, ye flocks that love to rove;
The which affecting stranger steads as bound in exile's brunt
My sect pursuing led by me have nerved you to confront
The raging surge of salty sea and ocean's tyrant hand
As your hate of Venus' hest your manly forms unmann'd,
Gladden your souls, ye mistresses, with sense of error bann'd.
Drive from your spirits dull delay, together follow ye
To hold of Phrygian goddess, home of Phrygian Cybebe,
Where loud the cymbal's voice resounds with timbrel-echoes blending,
And where the Phrygian piper drones grave bass from reed a-bending,
Where toss their ivy-circled heads with might the Maenades
Where ply mid shrilly lullilooes the holiest mysteries,
Where to fly here and there be wont the she-god's vaguing train,
Thither behoves us lead the dance in quick-step hasty strain."
Soon as had Atys (bastard-she) this lay to comrades sung
The Chorus sudden lulliloos with quivering, quavering tongue,
Again the nimble timbrel groans, the scooped-out cymbals clash,
And up green Ida flits the Choir, with footsteps hurrying rash
Then Atys frantic, panting, raves, a-wandering, lost, insane,
And leads with timbrel hent and treads the shades where shadows rain,
Like heifer spurning load of yoke in yet unbroken pride;
And the swift Gallae follow fain their first and fleet-foot guide.
But when the home of Cybele they make with toil out-worn
O'er much, they lay them down to sleep and gifts of Ceres scorn;
Till heavy slumbers seal their eyelids langourous, drooping lowly,
And raving frenzy flies each brain departing softly, slowly.
But when Dan Sol with radiant eyes that fire his face of gold
Surveyed white aether and solid soil and waters uncontrol'd,
And chased with steeds sonorous-hooved the shades of lingering night,
Then sleep from waking Atys fled fleeting with sudden flight,
By Nymph Pasithae welcomed to palpitating breast.
Thus when his frenzy raging rash was soothed to gentlest rest,
Atys revolved deeds lately done, as thought from breast unfolding,
And what he'd lost and what he was with lucid sprite beholding,
To shallows led by surging soul again the way 'gan take.
There casting glance of weeping eyes where vasty billows brake,
Sad-voiced in pitifullest lay his native land bespake.
"Country of me, Creatress mine, born to thee and bred,
By hapless me abandoned as by thrall from lordling fled,
When me to Ida's groves and glades these vaguing footsteps bore
To tarry 'mid the snows and where lurk beasts in antres frore
And seek the deeply hidden lairs where furious ferals meet!
Where, Country! whither placed must I now hold thy site and seat?
Lief would these balls of eyes direct to thee their line of sight,
Which for a while, a little while, would free me from despite.
Must I for ever roam these groves from house and home afar?
Of country, parents, kith and kin (life's boon) myself debar?
Fly Forum, fly Palestra, fly the Stadium, the Gymnase?
Wretch, ah poor wretch, I'm doomed (my soul!) to mourn throughout my days,
For what of form or figure is, which I failed to enjoy?
I full-grown man, I blooming youth, I stripling, I a boy,
I of Gymnasium erst the bloom, I too of oil the pride:
Warm was my threshold, ever stood my gateways opening wide,
My house was ever garlanded and hung with flowery freight,
And couch to quit with rising sun, has ever been my fate:
Now must I Cybele's she-slave, priestess of gods, be hight?
I Maenad I, mere bit of self, I neutral barren wight?
I spend my life-tide couch't beneath high-towering Phrygian peaks?
I dwell on Ida's verdant slopes mottled with snowy streaks,
Where homes the forest-haunting doe, where roams the wildling boar?
Now, now I rue my deed foredone, now, now it irks me sore!"
Whenas from out those roseate lips these accents rapid flew,
Bore them to ears divine consigned a Nuncio true and new;
Then Cybele her lions twain disjoining from their yoke
The left-hand enemy of the herds a-goading thus bespoke:
"Up feral fell! up, hie with him, see rage his foot-steps urge,
See that his fury smite him till he seek the forest verge,
He who with over-freedom fain would fly mine empery.
Go, slash thy flank with lashing tail and sense the strokes of thee,
Make the whole mountain to thy roar sound and resound again,
And fiercely toss thy brawny neck that bears the tawny mane!"
So quoth an angered Cybele, and yoke with hand untied:
The feral rose in fiery wrath and self-inciting hied,
A-charging, roaring through the brake with breaking paws he tore.
But when he reached the humid sands where surges cream the shore,
Spying soft Atys lingering near the marbled pave of sea
He springs: the terror-madded wretch back to the wood doth flee,
Where for the remnant of her days a bondmaid's life led she.
Great Goddess, Goddess Cybele, Dindymus dame divine,
Far from my house and home thy wrath and wrack, dread mistress mine:
Goad others on with Fury's goad, others to Ire consign!
Poem 64
Marriage of Peleus and Thetis
Pine-trees gendered whilome upon soaring Peliac summit
Swam (as the tale is told) through liquid surges of Neptune
Far as the Phasis-flood and frontier-land Aeetean;
Whenas the youths elect, of Argive vigour the oak-heart,
Longing the Golden Fleece of the Colchis-region to harry,
Dared in a poop swift-paced to span salt seas and their shallows,
Sweeping the deep blue seas with sweeps a-carven of fir-wood.
She, that governing Goddess of citadels crowning the cities,
Builded herself their car fast-flitting with lightest of breezes,
Weaving plants of the pine conjoined in curve of the kelson;
Foremost of all to imbue rude Amphitrite with ship-lore.
Soon as her beak had burst through wind-rackt spaces of ocean,
While the oar-tortured wave with spumy whiteness was blanching,
Surged from the deep abyss and hoar-capped billows the faces
Seaborn, Nereids eyeing the prodigy wonder-smitten.
There too mortal orbs through softened spendours regarded
Ocean-nymphs who exposed bodies denuded of raiment
Bare to the breast upthrust from hoar froth capping the sea-depths.
Then Thetis Peleus fired (men say) a-sudden with love,
Then Thetis nowise spurned to mate and marry with mortal,
Then Thetis' Sire himself her yoke with Peleus sanctioned.
Oh, in those happier days now fondly yearned-for, you heroes
Born; (all hail!) of the gods begotten, and excellent issue
Bred by your mothers, all hail! and placid deal me your favour.
Oft with the sound of me, in strains and spells I'll invoke you;
You too by wedding-torch so happily, highly augmented,
Peleus, Thessaly's ward, in whose favor Jupiter himself,
The Father of the gods, resigned his passions.
You Thetis, fairest of maids Nereian, vouchsafed to marry?
You did Tethys empower to woo and wed with her grandchild;
Nor less Oceanus, with water compassing th' Earth-globe?
But when ended the term, and wisht-for light of the day-tide
Uprose, flocks to the house in concourse mighty, convened,
Thessaly all, with glad assembly the Palace fulfilling:
Presents afore they bring, and joy in faces declare they.
Cieros abides a desert: they quit Phthiotican Tempe,
Homesteads of Crannon-town, eke bulwarkt walls Larissa;
Meeting at Pharsalus, and roof Pharsalian seeking.
None will the fields now till; soft wax all necks the oxen,
Never the humble vine is purged by curve of the rake-tooth,
Never a pruner's hook thins out the shade of the tree-tufts,
Never a bull up-plows broad glebe with bend of the coulter,
Over whose point unuse displays the squalor of rust-stain.
But in the homestead's heart, where'er that opulent palace
Hides a retreat, all shines with splendour of gold and of silver.
Ivory blanches the seats, bright gleam the flagons a-table,
All of the mansion joys in royal riches and grandeur.
But for the Diva's use bestrewn is the genial bedstead,
Hidden in midmost stead, and its polisht framework of Indian
Tusk underlies its cloth empurpled by juice of the dye-shell.
This be a figured cloth with forms of manhood primeval
Showing by marvel-art the gifts and graces of heroes.
Here upon Dia's strand wave-resonant, ever-regarding
Theseus borne from sight outside by fleet of the fleetest,
Stands Ariadne with heart full-filled with furies unbated,
Nor can her sense as yet believe she 'spies the espied,
When like one that awakes new roused from slumber deceptive,
Sees she her hapless self lone left on loneliest sandbank:
While as the mindless youth with oars disturbeth the shallows,
Casts to the windy storms what vows he vainly had vowed.
Him through the sedges afar the sad-eyed maiden of Minos,
Likest a Bacchant-girl stone-carven, (O her sorrow!)
'Spies, a-tossing the while on sorest billows of love-care.
Now no more on her blood-hued hair fine fillets retains she,
No more now light veil conceals her bosom erst hidden,
Now no more smooth zone contains her milky-hued paplets:
All gear dropping adown from every part of her person
Thrown, lie fronting her feet to the briny wavelets a sea-toy.
But at such now no more of her veil or her fillet a-floating
Had she regard: on you, Theseus! all of her heart-strength,
All of her sprite, her mind, forlorn, were evermore hanging.
Ah, sad soul, by grief and grievance driven beside you,
Sowed Erycina first those brambly cares in thy bosom,
What while issuing fierce with will enstarkened, Theseus
Forth from the bow-bent shore Piraean putting a-seawards
Reacht the Gortynian roofs where dwelt the injurious Monarch.
For 'twas told of yore how forced by pestilence cruel,
Eke as a blood rite due for the Androgeonian murder,
Many a chosen youth and the bloom of damsels unmarried
Food for the Minotaur, Cecropia was wont to befurnish.
Seeing his narrow walls in such wise vexed with evils,
Theseus of freest will for dear-loved Athens his body
Offered a victim so that no more to Crete be deported
Lives by Cecropia doomed to burials burying nowise;
Then with a swifty ship and soft breathed breezes a-stirring,
Sought he Minos the Haughty where homed in proudest of Mansions.
Him as with yearning glance forthright espied the royal
Maiden, whom pure chaste couch aspiring delicate odours
Cherisht, in soft embrace of a mother comforted all-whiles,
(E'en as the myrtles begot by the flowing floods of Eurotas,
Or as the tincts distinct brought forth by breath of the springtide)
Never the burning lights of her eyes from gazing upon him
Turned she, before fierce flame in all her body conceived she
Down in its deepest depths and burning within her marrow.
Ah, with unmitigate heart exciting wretchedmost furies,
You, Boy sacrosanct! man's grief and gladness commingling,
You too of Golgos Queen and Lady of leafy Idalium,
Whelm'd you in what manner waves that maiden fantasy-fired,
All for a blond-haired youth suspiring many a singulf!
Whiles how dire was the dread she dreed in languishing heart-strings;
[100] How yet more, ever more, with golden splendour she paled!
Whenas yearning to mate his might with the furious monster
Theseus braved his death or sought the prizes of praises.
Then of her gifts to gods not ingrate, nor profiting naught,
Promise with silent lip, addressed she timidly vowing.
For as an oak that shakes on topmost summit of Taurus
Its boughs, or cone-growing pine from bole bark resin exuding,
Whirlwind of passing might that twists the stems with its storm-blasts,
Uproots, deracinates, forthright its trunk to the farthest,
Prone falls, shattering wide what lies in line of its downfall,
Thus was that wildling flung by Theseus and vanquisht of body,
Vainly tossing its horns and goring the wind to no purpose.
Thence with abounding praise returned he, guiding his footsteps,
While a fine drawn thread checked steps in wander abounding,
Lest when issuing forth of the winding maze labyrinthine
Baffled become his track by inobservable error.
But for what cause should I, from early subject digressing,
Tell of the daughter who the face of her sire unseeing,
Eke her sister's embrace nor less her mother's endearments,
Who in despair bewept her hapless child that so gladly
Chose before every and each the lively wooing of Theseus?
Or how borne by the ship to the yeasting shore-line of Dia
Came she? or how when bound her eyes in bondage of slumber
Left her that chosen mate with mind unmindful departing?
Often (they tell) with heart inflamed by fiery fury
Poured she shrilling of shrieks from deepest depths of her bosom;
Now she would sadly scale the broken faces of mountains,
Whence she might overglance the boundless boiling of billows,
Then she would rush to bestem the salt-plain's quivering wavelet
And from her ankles bare the dainty garment uplifting,
Spoke she these words ('tis said) from sorrow's deepest abysses,
While from her tear-drencht face outburst cold shivering sobs.
"Thus from my patrial shore, O traitor, hurried to exile,
Me on a lonely strand hast left, perfidious Theseus?
Thus wise farest, despite the godhead of Deities spurned,
(Reckless, alas!) to your home convoying perjury-curses?
Naught, then, ever availed that mind of cruelest counsel
Alter? No saving grace in you was evermore ready,
That to have pity on me vouchsafed your pitiless bosom?
Nevertheless not in past time such were the promises wordy
Lavished; nor such hopes to me the hapless were bidden;
But the glad married joys, the longed-for pleasures of wedlock.
All now empty and vain, by breath of the breezes bescattered!
Now, let woman no more trust her to man when he sweareth,
Ne'er let her hope to find or truth or faith in his pleadings,
Who when lustful thought forelooks to somewhat attaining,
Never an oath they fear, shall spare no promise to promise.
Yet no sooner they sate all lewdness and lecherous fancy,
Nothing remember of words and reck they naught of fore-swearing.
Certes, you did I snatch from midmost whirlpool of ruin
Deadly, and held it cheap loss of a brother to suffer
Rather than fail your need (O false!) at hour the supremest.
Therefore my limbs are doomed to be torn of birds, and of ferals
Prey, nor shall upheapt Earth afford a grave to my body.
Say me, what lioness bare you 'neath lone rock of the desert?
What sea spued you conceived from out the spume of his surges!
What manner Syrt, what ravening Scylla, what vasty Charybdis?
you who for sweet life saved such meeds are lief of returning!
If never willed your breast with me to mate you in marriage,
Hating the savage law decreed by primitive parent,
Still of your competence 'twas within your household to home me,
Where I might serve as slave in gladsome service familiar,
Laving your snow-white feet in clearest chrystalline waters
Or with its purpling gear your couch in company strewing.
Yet for what cause should I complain in vain to the winds that unknow me,
(I so beside me with grief!) which ne'er of senses endued
Hear not the words sent forth nor aught avail they to answer?
Now be his course well-nigh engaged in midway of ocean,
Nor any mortal shape appears in barrens of sea-wrack.
Thus at the latest hour with insults over-sufficient
E'en to my plaints fere Fate begrudges ears that would hear me.
Jupiter! Lord of All-might, Oh would in days that are bygone
Ne'er had Cecropian poops toucht ground at Gnossian foreshore,
Nor to the unconquered Bull that tribute direful conveying
Had the false Seaman bound to Cretan island his hawser,
Nor had yon evil wight, 'neath shape the softest hard purpose
Hiding, enjoyed repose within our mansion beguested!
Whither can wend I now? What hope lends help to the lost one?
Idomenean mounts shall I scale? Ah, parted by whirlpools
Widest, yon truculent main where yields it power of passage?
Aid of my sire can I crave? Whom I willing abandoned,
Treading in tracks of a youth bewrayed with blood of a brother!
Can I console my soul with the helpful love of a helpmate
Who flies me with pliant oars, flies overbounding the sea-depths?
Nay, if this Coast I quit, this lone isle lends me no roof-tree,
Nor aught issue allows begirt by billows of Ocean:
Nowhere is path for flight: none hope shows: all things are silent:
All be a desolate waste: all makes display of destruction.
Yet never close these eyes in latest languor of dying,
Ne'er from my wearied frame go forth slow-ebbing my senses,
Ere from the Gods just doom implore I, treason-betrayed,
And with my breath supreme firm faith of Celestials invoke I.
Therefore, O you who 'venge man's deed with penalties direful,
Eumenides! aye wont to bind with viperous hairlocks
Foreheads,Oh, deign outspeak fierce wrath from bosom outbreathing,
Hither, Oh hither, speed, and lend you all ear to my grievance,
Which now sad I (alas!) outpour from innermost vitals
Maugre my will, sans help, blind, fired with furious madness.
And, as indeed all spring from veriest core of my bosom,
Suffer you not the cause of grief and woe to evanish;
But with the Will wherewith could Theseus leave me in loneness,
Goddesses! bid that Will lead him, lead his, to destruction."
[202] E'en as she thus poured forth these words from anguish of bosom,
And for this cruel deed, distracted, sued she for vengeance,
Nodded the Ruler of Gods Celestial, matchless of All-might,
When at the gest earth-plain and horrid spaces of ocean
Trembled, and every sphere rockt stars and planets resplendent.
Meanwhile Theseus himself, obscured in blindness of darkness
As to his mind, dismiss'd from breast oblivious all things
Erewhile enjoined and held hereto in memory constant,
Nor for his saddened sire the gladness-signals uphoisting
Heralded safe return within sight of the Erechthean harbour.
For 'twas told of yore, when from walls of the Virginal Deess
Aegeus speeding his son, to the care of breezes committed,
Thus with a last embrace to the youth spoke words of commandment:
"Son! far nearer my heart (you alone) than life of the longest,
Son, I perforce dismiss to doubtful, dangerous chances,
Lately restored to me when eld draws nearest his ending,
Since such fortune in me, and in you such boiling of valour
Tear you away from me so loath, whose eyes in their languor
Never are sated with sight of my son, all-dearest of figures.
Nor will I send you forth with joy that gladdens my bosom,
Nor will I suffer you show boon signs of favouring Fortune,
But from my soul I'll first express an issue of sorrow,
Soiling my hoary hairs with dust and ashes commingled;
Then will I hang stained sails fast-made to the wavering yard-arms,
So shall our mourning thought and burning torture of spirit
Show by the dark sombre-dye of Iberian canvas spread.
But, grant me the grace Who dwells in Sacred Itone,
(And our issue to guard and ward the seats of Erechtheus
Sware She) that if your right is besprent with blood of the Man-Bull,
Then do you so-wise act, and stored in memory's heart-core
Dwell these mandates of me, no time their traces untracing.
Dip, when first shall arise our hills to gladden your eye-glance,
Down from your every mast the ill-omened vestments of mourning,
Then let the twisten ropes upheave the whitest of canvas,
Wherewith splendid shall gleam the tallest spars of the top-mast,
These seeing sans delay with joy exalting my spirit
Well shall I wot boon Time sets you returning before me."
Such were the mandates which stored at first in memory constant
Faded from Theseus' mind like mists, compelled by the whirlwind,
Fleet from aerial crests of mountains hoary with snow-drifts.
But as the sire had sought the citadel's summit for outlook,
Wasting his anxious eyes with tear-floods evermore flowing,
Forthright e'en as he saw the sail-gear darkened with dye-stain,
Headlong himself flung he from the sea-cliff's pinnacled summit
Holding his Theseus lost by doom of pitiless Fortune.
Thus as he came to the home funest, his roof-tree paternal,
Theseus (vaunting the death), what dule to the maiden of Minos
Dealt with unminding mind so dree'd he similar dolour.
She too gazing in grief at the kelson vanishing slowly,
Self-wrapt, manifold cares revolved in spirit perturbed.
ON ANOTHER PART OF THE COVERLET
But from the further side came flitting bright-faced Iacchus
Girded by Satyr-crew and Nysa-reared Sileni
Burning with love unto thee (Ariadne!) and greeting thy presence.
[gap in text]
Who flocking eager to fray did rave with infuriate spirit,
"Evoe" frenzying loud, with heads at "Evoe rolling.
Brandisht some of the maids their thyrsi sheathed of spear-point,
Some snatcht limbs and joints of sturlings rended to pieces,
These girt necks and waists with writhing bodies of vipers,
Those with the gear enwombed in crates dark orgies ordained
Orgies that ears profane must vainly lust for o'er hearing
Others with palms on high smote hurried strokes on the cymbal,
Or from the polisht brass woke thin-toned tinkling music,
While from the many there boomed and blared hoarse blast of the horn-trump,
And with its horrid skirl loud shrilled the barbarous bag-pipe
Showing such varied forms, that richly-decorated couch-cloth
Folded in strait embrace the bedding drapery-veiled.
This when the Thessalan youths had eyed with eager inspection
Fulfilled, place they began to provide for venerate Godheads,
Even as Zephyrus' breath, seas couching placid at dawn-tide,
Roughens, then stings and spurs the wavelets slantingly fretted
Rising Aurora the while 'neath Sol the wanderer's threshold
Tardy at first they flow by the clement breathing of breezes
Urged, and echo the shores with soft-toned ripples of laughter,
But as the winds wax high so waves wax higher and higher,
Flashing and floating afar to outswim morn's purpurine splendours,
So did the crowd fare forth, the royal vestibule leaving,
And to their house each wight with vaguing paces departed.
After their wending, the first, foremost from Pelion's summit,
Chiron came to the front with woodland presents surcharged:
Whatso of blooms and flowers bring forth Thessalian uplands
Mighty with mountain crests, whate'er of riverine lea flowers
Reareth Favonius' air, bud-breeding, tepidly breathing,
All in his hands brought he, unseparate in woven garlands,
Whereat laughed the house as soothed by pleasure of perfume.
Presently Pneus appears, deserting verdurous Tempe
Tempe girt by her belts of greenwood ever impending,
Left for the Mamonides with frequent dances to worship
Nor is he empty of hand, for bears he tallest of beeches
Deracinate, and bays with straight boles lofty and stately,
Not without nodding plane-tree nor less the flexible sister
Fire-slain Phaton left, and not without cypresses airy.
These in a line wide-broke set he, the Mansion surrounding,
So by the soft leaves screened, the porch might flourish in verdure.
Follows hard on his track with active spirit Prometheus,
Bearing extenuate sign of penalties suffer'd in by-gones.
Paid erewhiles what time fast-bound as to every member,
Hung he in carkanet slung from the Scythian rocktor.
Last did the Father of Gods with his sacred spouse and his offspring,
Proud from the Heavens proceed, thee leaving (Phoebus) in loneness,
[300] Lone wi' thy sister twin who haunteth mountains of Idrus:
For that the Virgin spurned as thou the person of Peleus,
Nor Thetis' nuptial torch would greet by act of her presence.
When they had leaned their limbs upon snowy benches reposing,
Tables largely arranged with various viands were garnisht.
But, ere opened the feast, with infirm gesture their semblance
Shaking, the Parcae fell to chaunting veridique verses.
Robed were their tremulous frames all o'er in muffle of garments
Bright-white, purple of hem enfolding heels in its edges;
Snowy the fillets that bound heads aged by many a year-tide,
And, as their wont aye was, their hands plied labour unceasing.
Each in her left upheld with soft fleece clothed a distaff,
Then did the right that drew forth thread with upturn of fingers
Gently fashion the yarn which deftly twisted by thumb-ball
Speeded the spindle poised by thread-whorl perfect of polish;
Thus as the work was wrought, the lengths were trimmed wi' the fore-teeth,
While to their thin, dry lips stuck wool-flecks severed by biting,
Which at the first outstood from yarn-hanks evenly fine-drawn.
Still at their feet in front soft fleece-flecks white as the snow-flake
Lay in the trusty guard of wickers woven in withies.
Always a-carding the wool, with clear-toned voices resounding
Told they such lots as these in song divinely directed,
Chaunts which none after-time shall 'stablish falsehood-convicted.
1.
O who by virtues great all highmost honours enhancest,
Guard of Emthia-land, most famous made by thine offspring,
Take what the Sisters deign this gladsome day to disclose thee,
Oracles soothfast told,And ye, by Destiny followed,
Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, speed ye, 0 Spindles.
2.
Soon to thy sight shall rise, their fond hopes bringing to bridegrooms,
Hesperus: soon shall come thy spouse with planet auspicious,
Who shall thy mind enbathe with a love that softens the spirit,
And as thyself shall prepare for sinking in languorous slumber,
Under thy neck robust, soft arms dispreading as pillow.
Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, speed ye, 0 Spindles.
3.
Never a house like this such loves as these hath united,
Never did love conjoin by such-like covenant lovers,
As th'according tie Thetis deigned in concert wi' Peleus.
Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, speed ye, 0 Spindles.
4.
Born of yon twain shall come Achilles guiltless of fear-sense,
Known by his forceful breast and ne'er by back to the foeman,
Who shall at times full oft in doubtful contest of race-course
Conquer the fleet-foot doe with slot-tracks smoking and burning.
Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, speed ye, 0 Spindles.
5.
None shall with him compare, howe'er war-doughty a hero,
Whenas the Phrygian rills flow deep with bloodshed of Teucer,
And beleaguering the walls of Troy with longest of warfare
He shall the works lay low, third heir of Pelops the perjured.
Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, speed ye, 0 Spindles.
6.
His be the derring-do and deeds of valour egregious,
Often mothers shall own at funeral-rites of their children,
What time their hoary hairs from head in ashes are loosened,
And wi' their hands infirm thay smite their bosoms loose duggd.
Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, speed ye, 0 Spindles.
7.
For as the toiling hind bestrewing denseness of corn-stalks
Under the broiling sun mows grain-fields yellow to harvest,
So shall his baneful brand strew earth with corpses of Troy-born.
Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, speed ye, 0 Spindles.
8.
Aye to his valorous worth attest shall wave of Scamander
Which unto Hell-Sea fast flowing ever dischargeth,
Straiter whose course shall grow by up-heaped barrage of corpses,
While in his depths runs warm his stream with slaughter commingled.
Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, speed ye, 0 Spindles.
9.
Witness in fine shall be the victim rendered to death-stroke,
Whenas the earthern tomb on lofty tumulus builded
Shall of the stricken maid receive limbs white as the snow-flake.
Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, speed ye, 0 Spindles.
10.
For when at last shall Fors to weary Achaians her fiat
Deal, of Dardanus-town to burst Neptunian fetters,
Then shall the high-reared tomb stand bathed with Polyxena's life-blood,
Who, as the victim doomed to fall by the double-edged falchion,
Forward wi' hams relaxt shall smite a body beheaded.
Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, speed ye, 0 Spindles.
11.
Wherefore arise, ye pair, conjoin loves ardently longed-for,
Now doth the groom receive with happiest omen his goddess,
Now let the bride at length to her yearning spouse be delivered.
Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, speed ye, 0 Spindles.
12.
Neither the nurse who comes at dawn to visit her nursling
E'er shall avail her neck to begird with yesterday's ribband.
[Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, speed ye, 0 spindles.]
Nor shall the mother's soul for ill-matcht daughter a-grieving
Lose by a parted couch all hopes of favourite grandsons.
Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, speed ye, 0 Spindles.
Thus in the bygone day Peleus' fate foretelling
Chaunted from breasts divine prophetic verse the Parcae.
For that the pure chaste homes of heroes to visit in person
Oft-tide the Gods, and themselves to display where mortals were gathered,
Wont were the Heavenlies while none human piety spurned.
Often the Deities' Sire, in fulgent temple a-dwelling,
Whenas in festal days received he his annual worship,
Looked upon hundreds of bulls felled prone on pavement before him.
Full oft Liber who roamed from topmost peak of Parnassus
Hunted his howling host, his Thyiads with tresses dishevelled.
Then with contending troops from all their city outflocking
Gladly the Delphians hailed their God with smoking of altars.
Often in death-full war and bravest of battle, or Mavors
Or rapid Triton's Queen or eke the Virgin Rhamnusian,
Bevies of weaponed men exhorting, proved their presence.
But from the time when earth was stained with unspeakable scandals
And forth fro' greeding breasts of all men justice departed,
Then did the brother drench his hands in brotherly bloodshed,
Stinted the son in heart to mourn decease of his parents,
Longd the sire to sight his first-born's funeral convoy
So more freely the flower of step-dame-maiden to rifle;
After that impious Queen her guiltless son underlying,
Impious, the household gods with crime ne'er dreading to sully
All things fair and nefand being mixt in fury of evil
Turned from ourselves avert the great goodwill of the Godheads.
Wherefor they nowise deign our human assemblies to visit,
Nor do they suffer themselves be met in light of the day-tide.
Poem 65
TO HORTALUS LAMENTING A LOST BROTHER.
Albeit care that consumes, with dule assiduous grieving,
Me from the Learnd Maids (Hortalus!) ever seclude,
Nor can avail sweet births of the Muses thou to deliver
Thought o' my mind; (so much floats it on flooding of ills:
For that the Lethe-wave upsurging of late from abysses,
Lavd my brother's foot, paling with pallor of death,
He whom the Trojan soil, Rhoetean shore underlying,
Buries for ever and aye, forcibly snatched from our sight.
[gap in text]
I can address; no more shall I hear thee tell of thy doings,
Say, shall I never again, brother all liefer than life,
Sight thee henceforth? But I will surely love thee for ever
Ever what songs I sing saddened shall be by thy death;
Such as the Daulian bird 'neath gloom of shadowy frondage
Warbles, of Itys lost ever bemoaning the lot.)
Yet amid grief so great to thee, my Hortalus, send I
These strains sung to a mode borrowed from Battiades;
Lest shouldest weet of me thy words, to wandering wind-gusts
Vainly committed, perchance forth of my memory flowed
As did that apple sent for a furtive giftie by wooer,
In the chaste breast of the Maid hidden a-sudden out-sprang;
For did the hapless forget when in loose-girt garment it lurkd,
Forth would it leap as she rose, scared by her mother's approach,
And while coursing headlong, it rolls far out of her keeping,
O'er the triste virgin's brow flushes the conscious blush.
Poem 66
(LOQUITUR) BERENICE'S LOCK.
He who every light of the sky world's vastness inspected,
He who mastered in mind risings and settings of stars,
How of the fast rising sun obscured be the fiery splendours,
How at the seasons assured vanish the planets from view,
How Diana to lurk thief-like 'neath Latmian stone-fields,
Summoned by sweetness of Love, comes from her ary gyre;
That same Cnon espied among lights Celestial shining
Me, Berenice's Hair, which, from her glorious head,
Fulgent in brightness afar, to many a host of the Godheads
Stretching her soft smooth arms she vowed to devoutly bestow,
What time strengthened by joy of new-made wedlock the monarch
Bounds of Assyrian land hurried to plunder and pill;
Bearing of nightly strife new signs and traces delicious,
Won in the war he waged virginal trophies to win.
Loathsome is Venus to all new-paired? Else why be the parents'
Pleasure frustrated aye by the false flow of tears
Poured in profusion amid illuminate genial chamber?
Nay not real the 'groans; ever so help me the Gods!
This truth taught me my Queen by force of manifold 'plainings
After her new groom hied facing the fierceness of fight.
Yet so thou mournedst not for a bed deserted of husband,
As for a brother beloved wending on woefullest way?
How was the marrow of thee consumedly wasted by sorrow!
So clean forth of thy breast, rackt with solicitous care,
Mind fled, sense being reft! But I have known thee for certain
E'en from young virginal years lofty of spirit to be.
Hast thou forgotten the feat whose greatness won thee a royal
Marriagea deed so prow, never a prower was dared?
Yet how sad was the speech thou spakest, thy husband farewelling!
(Jupiter!) Often thine eyes wiping with sorrowful hand!
What manner God so great thus changed thee? Is it that lovers
Never will tarry afar parted from person beloved?
Then unto every God on behalf of thy helpmate, thy sweeting,
Me thou gayest in vow, not without bloodshed of bulls,
If he be granted return, and long while nowise delaying,
Captive Asia he add unto Egyptian bounds.
Now for such causes I, enrolled in host of the Heavens,
By a new present, discharge promise thou madest of old:
Maugr my will, 0 Queen, my place on thy head I relinquished,
Maugr my will, I attest, swearing by thee and thy head;
Penalty due shall befall whoso makes oath to no purpose.
Yet who assumes the vaunt forceful as iron to be?
E'en was that mount o'erthrown, though greatest in universe, where through
Tha's illustrious race speeded its voyage to end,
Whenas the Medes brought forth new sea, and barbarous youth-hood
Urged an Armada to swim traversing middle-Athos.
What can be done by Hair when such things yield them to Iron?
Jupiter! Grant Chalybon perish the whole of the race,
Eke who in primal times ore seeking under the surface
Showed th' example, and spalled iron however so hard.
Shortly before I was shorn my sister tresses bewaild
Lot of me, e'en as the sole brother to Memnon the Black,
Winnowing upper air wi' feathers flashing and quiv'ring,
Chloris' wing-borne steed, came before Arsino,
Whence upraising myself he flies through ary shadows,
And in chaste Venus' breast drops he the present he bears.
Eke Zephyritis had sent, for the purpose trusted, her bondsman,
Settler of Grecian strain on the Canopian strand.
So willed various Gods, lest sole 'mid lights of the Heavens
Should Ariadne's crown taken from temples of her
Glitter in gold, but we not less shine fulgent in splendour,
We the consecrate spoils shed by a blond-hued head,
Even as weeping-wet sought I the fanes of Celestials
Placed me the Goddess a new light amid star-lights of old:
For with Virgo in touch and joining the furious Lion's
Radiance with Callisto, maid of Lycon beloved,
Wind I still to the west, conducting tardy Botes,
Who unwilling and slow must into Ocean merge.
Yet though press me o'night the pacing footprints of Godheads,
Tethys, hoary of hair, ever regains me by day.
(Lend me thy leave to speak such words, Rhamnusian Virgin,
Verities like unto these never in fear will I veil;
Albeit every star asperse me with enemy's censure,
Secrets in soothfast heart hoarded perforce I reveal.)
Nowise gladdens me so this state as absence torments me,
Absence doomd for aye ta'en fro' my mistress's head,
Where I was wont (though she such cares unknew in her girlhood)
Many a thousand scents, Syrian unguents, to sip.
Now do you pair conjoined by the longed-for light of the torches,
Earlier yield not selves unto unanimous wills
Nor wi' the dresses doft your bard nipples encounter,
Ere shall yon onyx-vase pour me libations glad,
Onyx yours, ye that seek only rights of virtuous bed-rite.
But who yieldeth herself unto advowtry impure,
Ah! may her loathed gifts in light dust uselessly soak,
For of unworthy sprite never a gift I desire.
Rather, 0 new-mated brides, be concord aye your companion,
Ever let constant love dwell in the dwellings of you.
Yet when thou sightest, 0 Queen, the Constellations, I pray thee,
Every festal day Venus the Goddess appease;
Nor of thy unguent-gifts allow myself to be lacking,
Nay, do thou rather add largeliest increase to boons.
Would but the stars down fall! Could I of my Queen be the hair-lock,
Neighbour to Hydrochois e'en let Oarion shine.
Poem 67
DIALOGUE CONCERNING CATULLUS AT A HARLOT'S DOOR.
Quintus.
0 to the gentle spouse right dear, right dear to his parent,
Hail, and with increase fair Jupiter lend thee his aid,
Door, 'tis said wast fain kind service render to Balbus
Erst while, long as the house by her old owner was held;
Yet wast rumoured again to serve a purpose malignant,
After the elder was stretched, thou being oped for a bride.
Come, then, tell us the why in thee such change be reported
That to thy lord hast abjured faithfulness owed of old?
Door.
Never (so chance I to please Caeci1ius owning me now-a-days!)
Is it my own default, how so they say it be mine;
Nor can any declare aught sin by me was committed.
Yet it is so declared (Quintus!) by fable of folk;
Who, whenever they find things done no better than should be,
Come to me outcrying all:"Door, the default is thine own!"
Quintus.
This be never enough for thee one-worded to utter,
But in such way to deal, each and all sense it and see.
Door.
What shall I do? None asks, while nobody troubles to know.
Quintus.
Willing are we? unto us stay not thy saying to say.
Door.
First let me note that the maid to us committed (assert they)
Was but a fraud: her mate never a touch of her had,
[gap in text]
But that a father durst dishonour the bed of his first-born,
Folk all swear, and the house hapless with incest bewray;
Or that his impious mind was blunt with fiery passion
Or that his impotent son sprang from incapable seed.
And to be sought was one with nerve more nervous endowd,
Who could better avail zone of the virgin to loose.
Quintus.
'Sooth, of egregious sire for piety wondrous, thou tellest,
Who in the heart of his son lief was . . . !
Yet professed herself not only this to be knowing,
Brixia-town that lies under the Cycnean cliff,
Traversed by Mella-stream's soft-flowing yellow-hued current,
Brixia, Vrona's mother, I love for my home.
Door.
Eke of Posthumius' loves and Cornelius too there be tattle,
With whom dared the dame evil advowtry commit.
Quintus.
Here might somebody ask :" How, Door, hast mastered such matter?
Thou that canst never avail threshold of owner to quit,
Neither canst listen to folk since here fast fixt to the side-posts
Only one office thou hast, shutting or opening the house."
Door.
Oft have I heard our dame in furtive murmurs o'er telling,
When with her handmaids alone, these her flagitious deeds,
Citing fore-cited names for that she never could fancy
Ever a Door was endow'd either with earlet or tongue.
Further she noted a wight whose name in public to mention
Nill I, lest he upraise eyebrows of carroty hue;
Long is the loon and large the law-suit brought they against him
Touching a child-bed false, claim of a belly that lied.
Poem 68
To MANIUS ON VARIOUS MATTERS.
When to me sore opprest by bitter chance of misfortune
This thy letter thou send'st written wi' blotting of tears,
So might I save thee flung by spuming billows of ocean,
Shipwreckt, rescuing life snatcht from the threshold of death;
Eke neither Venus the Holy to rest in slumber's refreshment
Grants thee her grace on couch lying deserted and lone,
Nor can the Muses avail with dulcet song of old writers
Ever delight thy mind sleepless in anxious care;
Grateful be this to my thought since thus thy friend I'm entitled,
Hence of me seekest thou gifts Muses and Venus can give:
But that bide not unknown to thee my sorrows (0 Manius!)
And lest office of host I should be holden to hate,
Learn how in Fortune's deeps I chance myself to be drownd,
Nor fro' the poor rich boons furthermore prithee require.
What while first to myself the pure-white garment was given,
Whenas my flowery years flowed in fruition of spring,
Much I disported enow, nor 'bode I a stranger to Goddess
Who with our cares is lief sweetness of bitter to mix:
Yet did a brother's death pursuits like these to my sorrow
Bid for me cease: Oh, snatcht brother! from wretchedest me.
Then, yea, thou by thy dying hast broke my comfort, 0 brother;
Buried together wi' thee lieth the whole of our house;
Perisht along wi' thyself all gauds and joys of our life-tide,
Douce love fostered by thee during the term of our days.
After thy doom of death fro' mind I banishd wholly
Studies like these, and all lending a solace to soul;
Wherefore as to thy writ :"Verona's home for Catullus
Bringeth him shame, for there men of superior mark
Must on a deserted couch fain chafe their refrigerate limbs:"
Such be no shame (Manius!): rather 'tis matter of ruth.
Pardon me, then, wilt thou an gifts bereft me by grieving
These I send not to thee since I avail not present.
For, that I own not here abundant treasure of writings
Has for its cause, in Rome dwell I; and there am I homed,
There be my seat, and there my years are gathered to harvest;
Out of book-cases galore here am I followed by one.
This being thus, nill I thou deem 'tis spirit malignant
Acts in such wise or mind lacking of liberal mood
That to thy prayer both gifts be not in plenty supplid:
Willingly both had I sent, had I the needed supply.
Nor can I (Goddesses!) hide in what things Allius sent me
Aid, forbear to declare what was the aidance he deigned:
Neither shall fugitive Time from centuries ever oblivious
Veil in the blinds of night friendship he lavisht on me.
But will I say unto you what you shall say to the many
Thousands in turn, and make paper, old crone, to proclaim
[gap in text]
And in his death become noted the more and the more,
Nor let spider on high that weaves her delicate webbing
Practise such labours o'er Allius' obsolete name.
For that ye weet right well what care Amathsia two-faced
Gave me, and how she dasht every hope to the ground,
Whenas I burnt so hot as burn Trinacria's rocks or
Mallia stream that feeds tan Thermopylae;
Nor did these saddened eyes to be dimmed by assiduous weeping
Cease, and my cheeks with showers ever in sadness be wet.
E'en as from ary heights of mountain springeth a springlet
Limpidest leaping forth from rocking felted with moss,
Then having headlong rolled the prone-laid valley downpouring,
Populous region amid wendeth his gradual way,
Sweetest solace of all to the sweltering traveller wayworn,
Whenas the heavy heat fissures the fiery fields;
Or, as to seamen lost in night of whirlwind a-glooming
Gentle of breath there comes fairest and favouring breeze,
Pollux anon being prayed, nor less vows offered to Castor:
Such was the aidance to us Manius pleased to afford.
He to my narrow domains far wider limits laid open,
He too gave me the house, also he gave me the dame,
She upon whom both might exert them, partners in love deeds.
Thither graceful of gait pacing my goddess white-hued
Came and with gleaming foot on the worn sole of the threshold
Stood she and prest its slab creakihg her sandals the while;
E'enso with love enflamed in olden days to her helpmate,
Laodama the home Protesilan besought,
Sought, but in vain, for ne'er wi' sacrificial blood shed
Victims appeased the Lords ruling Celestial seats:
Never may I so joy in aught (Rhamnusian Virgin!)
That I engage in deed maugr the will of the Lords.
How starved altar can crave for gore in piety poured,
Laodamia learnt taught by the loss of her man,
Driven perforce to loose the neck of new-wedded help-mate,
Whenas a winter had gone, nor other winter had come,
Ere in the long dark nights her greeding love was so sated
That she had power to live maugr a marriage broke off,
Which, as the Parcae knew, too soon was fated to happen
Should he a soldier sail bound for those llian walls.
For that by Helena's rape, the Champion-leaders of Argives
Unto herself to incite Troy had already begun,
Troy (ah, curst be the name) common tomb of Asia and Europe,
Troy to sad ashes that turned valour and valorous men!
Eke to our brother beloved, destruction ever lamented
Brought she : 0 Brother for aye lost unto wretchedmost me,
Oh, to thy wretchedmost brother lost the light of his life-tide,
Buried together wi' thee lieth the whole of our house:
Perisht along wi' thyself forthright all joys we enjoyd,
Douce joys fed by thy love during the term of our days;
Whom now art tombed so far nor 'mid familiar pavestones
Nor wi' thine ashes stored near to thy kith and thy kin,
But in that Troy obscene, that Troy of ill-omen, entombd
Holds thee, an alien earth-buried in uttermost bourne.
Thither in haste so hot ('tis said) from allwhere the Youth-hood
Grecian, fard in hosts forth of their hearths and their homes,
Lest with a stolen punk with fullest of pleasure should Paris
Fairly at leisure and ease sleep in the pacific bed.
Such was the hapless chance, most beautiful Laodamia,
Tare fro' thee dearer than life, dearer than spirit itself,
Him, that husband, whose love in so mighty a whirlpool of passion
Whelmed thee absorbed and plunged deep in its gulfy abyss,
E'en as the Grecians tell hard by Phenus of Cyllne
Drained was the marish and dried, forming the fattest of soils,
Whenas in days long done to delve through marrow of mountains
Dard, falsing his sire, Amphtryniades;
What time sure of his shafts he smote Stymphalian monsters
Slaying their host at the hest dealt by a lord of less worth,
So might the gateway of Heaven be trodden by more of the godheads,
Nor might Hb abide longer to maidenhood doomed.
Yet was the depth of thy love far deeper than deepest of marish
Which the hard mistress's yoke taught him so tamely to bear;
Never was head so dear to a grandsire wasted by life-tide
Whenas one daughter alone a grandson so tardy had reared,
Who being found against hope to inherit riches of forbears
In the well-witnessed Will haply by name did appear,
And 'spite impious hopes of baffled claimant to kinship
Startles the Vulturine grip clutching the frost-bitten poll.
Nor with such rapture e'er joyed his mate of snowy-hued plumage
Dove-mate, albeit aye wont in her immoderate heat
Said be the bird to snatch hot kisses with beak ever billing,
As diddest thou :yet is Woman multivolent still.
But thou 'vailedest alone all these to conquer in love-lowe,
When conjoindd once more unto thy yellow-haired spouse.
Worthy of yielding to her in naught or ever so little
Came to the bosom of us she, the fair light of my life,
Round whom fluttering oft the Love-God hither and thither
Shone with a candid sheen robed in his safflower dress.
She though never she bide with one Catullus contented,
Yet will I bear with the rare thefts of my dame the discreet,
Lest over-irk I give which still of fools is the fashion.
Often did Juno eke Queen of the Heavenly host
Boil wi' the rabidest rage at dire default of a husband
Learning the manifold thefts of her omnivolent Jove,
Yet with the Gods mankind 'tis nowise righteous to liken,
[gap in text]
Rid me of graceless task fit for a tremulous sire.
Yet was she never to me by hand paternal committed
Whenas she came to my house reeking Assyrian scents;
Nay, in the darkness of night her furtive favours she deigned me,
Self-willed taking herself from very mate's very breast.
Wherefore I hold it enough since given to us and us only
Boon of that day with Stone whiter than wont she denotes.
This to theeall that I canthis offering couched in verses
(Allius!) as my return give I for service galore;
So wi' the seabriny rust your name may never be sullied
This day and that nor yet other and other again.
Hereto add may the Gods all good gifts, which Themis erewhiles
Wont on the pious of old from her full store to bestow:
Blest be the times of the twain, thyself and she who thy life is,
Also the home wherein dallied we, no less the Dame,
Anser to boot who first of mortals brought us together,
Whence from beginning all good Fortunes that blest us were born.
Lastly than every else one dearer than self and far dearer,
Light of my life who alive living to me can endear.
Poem 69
TO RUFUS THE FETID.
Wonder not blatantly why no woman shall ever be willing
(Rufus!) her tender thigh under thyself to bestow,
Not an thou tempt her full by bribes of the rarest garments,
Or by the dear delights gems the pellucidest deal.
Harms thee an ugly tale wherein of thee is recorded
Horrible stench of the goat under thine arm-pits be lodged.
All are in dread thereof; nor wonder this, for 'tis evil
Beastie, nor damsel fair ever thereto shall succumb.
So do thou either kill that cruel pest o' their noses,
Or at their reason of flight blatantly wondering cease.
Poem 70
ON WOMAN'S INCONSTANCY.
Never, my woman oft says, with any of men will she mate be,
Save wi' my own very self, ask her though Jupiter deign!
Says she: but womanly words that are spoken to desireful lover
Ought to be written on wind or upon water that runs.
Poem 71
TO VERRO.
An of a goat-stink damned from armpits fusty one suffer,
Or if a crippling gout worthily any one rack,
'Tis that rival o' thine who lief in loves of you meddles,
And, by a wondrous fate, gains him the twain of such ills.
For that, oft as he . . . , so oft that penance be two-fold;
Stifles her stench of goat, he too is kilt by his gout.
Poem 72
TO LESBIA THE FALSE.
Wont thou to vaunt whilme of, knowing only Catullus
(Lesbia!) nor to prefer Jupiter's self to myself.
Then, too, I loved thee well, not as vulgar wretch his mistress
But as a father his sons loves and his sons by the law.
Now have I learnt thee aright; wherefor though burn I the hotter,
Lighter and viler by far thou unto me hast become.
"How can this be?" dost ask: 'tis that such injury ever
Forces the hotter to love, also the less well to will.
Poem 73
OF AN INGRATE.
Cease thou of any to hope desird boon of well-willing,
Or deem any shall prove pious and true to his dues.
Waxes the world ingrate, no deed benevolent profits,
Nay full oft it irks even offending the more:
Such is my case whom none maltreats more grievously bitter,
Than does the man that me held one and only to friend.
Poem 74
OF GELLIUS.
Wont was Gellius hear his uncle rich in reproaches,
When any ventured aught wanton in word or in deed.
Lest to him chance such befall, his uncle's consort seduced he,
And of his uncle himself fashioned an Harpocrates.
What so he willed did he; and nowdays albe his uncle
. . . .he, no word ever that uncle shall speak.
Poem 75
So in devotion to thee lost is the duty self due,
Nor can I will thee well if best of women thou prove thee,
Nor can I cease to love, do thou what doings thou wilt.
Poem 76
IN SELF-GRATULATION.
If to remember deeds whilme well done be a pleasure
Meet for a man who deems all of his dealings be just,
Nor Holy Faith ever broke nor in whatever his compact
Sanction of Gods abused better to swindle mankind,
Much there remains for thee during length of living, Catullus,
Out of that Love ingrate further to solace thy soul;
For whatever of good can mortal declare of another
Or can avail he do, such thou hast said and hast done;
While to a thankless mind entrusted all of them perisht.
Why, then, crucify self now with a furthering pain?
Why not steady thy thoughts and draw thee back from such purpose,
Ceasing wretched to be maugr the will of the Gods?
Difficult 'tis indeed long Love to depose of a sudden,
Difficult 'tis, yet do e'en as thou deem to be best.
This be thy safe-guard sole; this conquest needs to be conquered;
This thou must do, thus act, whether thou cannot or can.
If an ye have (0 Gods!) aught ruth, or if you for any
Bring at the moment of death latest assistance to man,
Look upon me (poor me!) and, should I be cleanly of living,
Out of my life deign pluck this my so pestilent plague,
Which as a lethargy o'er mine inmost vitals a-creeping,
Hath from my bosom expelled all of what joyance it joyed,
Now will I crave no more she love me e'en as I love her,
Nor (impossible chance!) ever she prove herself chaste:
Would I were only healed and shed this fulsome disorder.
Oh Gods, grant me this boon unto my piety due!
Poem 77
TO RUFUS, THE TRAITOR FRIEND.
Rufus, trusted as friend by me, so fruitlessly, vainly,
(Vainly? nay to my bane and at a ruinous price!)
Hast thou cajoled me thus, and enfiring innermost vitals,
Ravished the whole of our good own'd by wretchedest me?
Ravished; (alas and alas!) of our life thou cruellest cruel
Venom, (alas and alas!) plague of our friendship and pest.
Yet must I now lament that lips so pure of the purest
Damsel, thy slaver foul soiled with filthiest kiss.
But ne'er hope to escape scot free; for thee shall all ages
Know, and what thing thou be, Fame, the old crone, shall declare.
Poem 78
OF GALLUS.
Gallus hath brothers in pair, this owning most beautiful consort,
While unto that is given also a beautiful son.
Gallus is charming as man; for sweet loves ever conjoins he,
So that the charming lad sleep wi' the charmer his lass.
Gallus is foolish wight, nor self regards he as husband,
When being uncle how nuncle to cuckold he show.
Poem 79
OF LESBIUS.
Lesbius is beauty-man: why not? when Lesbia wills him
Better, Catullus, than thee backed by the whole of thy clan.
Yet may that beauty-man sell all his clan with Catullus,
An of three noted names greeting salute he can gain.
Poem 80
TO GELLIUS.
How shall I (Gellius!) tell what way lips rosy as thine are
Come to be bleached and blanched whiter than wintry snow,
When as thou quittest the house a-morn, and at two after noon-tide
Roused from quiet repose, wakest for length of the day?
Certs sure am I not an Rumour rightfully whisper
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
Poem 81
TO JUVENTIUS.
Could there never be found in folk so thronging (Juventius!)
Any one charming thee whom thou couldst fancy to love,
Save and except that host from deadliest site of Pisaurum,
Wight than a statue gilt wanner and yellower-hued,
Whom to thy heart thou takest and whom thou darest before us
Choose? But villain what deed doest thou little canst wot!
Poem 82
TO QUINTIUS.
Quintius! an thou wish that Catullus should owe thee his eyes
Or aught further if aught dearer can be than his eyes,
Thou wilt not ravish from him what deems he dearer and nearer
E'en than his eyes if aught dearer there be than his eyes.
Poem 83
OF LESBIA's HUSBAND.
Lesbia heaps upon me foul words her mate being present;
Which to that simple soul causes the fullest delight.
Mule! naught sensest thou: did she forget us in silence,
Whole she had been; but now what so she rails and she snarls,
Not only dwells in her thought, but worse and even more risky,
Wrathful she bides. Which means, she is afire and she fumes.
Poem 84
ON ARRIUS, A ROMAN 'ARRY.
Wontis Arrius say "Chommodious" whenas "commodious"
Means he, and "Insidious "aspirate "Hinsidious,"
What time flattering self he speaks with marvellous purity,
Clamouring "Hinsidious" loudly as ever he can.
Deem I thus did his dame and thus-wise Liber his uncle
Speak, and on spindle-side grandsire and grandmother too.
Restful reposed all ears when he was sent into Syria,
Hearing the self-same words softly and smoothly pronouncd,
Nor any feared to hear such harshness uttered thereafter,
Whenas a sudden came message of horrible news,
Namely th' lonian waves when Arrius thither had wended,
Were "lonian" no morethey had "Hionian" become.
Poem 85
HOW THE POET LOVES
Hate I, and love I. Haps thou'lt ask me wherefore I do so.
Wot I not, yet so I do feeling a torture of pain.
Poem 86
OF QUINTIA.
Quintia beautiful seems to the crowd; to me, fair, and tall,
Straight; and merits as these readily thus I confess,
But that she is beauteous all I deny, for nothing of lovesome,
Never a grain of salt, shows in her person so large.
Lesbia beautiful seems, and when all over she's fairest,
Any Venus-gift stole she from every one.
Poem 87
TO LESBIA.
Never a woman could call herself so fondly beloved
Truly as Lesbia mine has been beloved of myself.
Never were Truth and Faith so firm in any one compact
As on the part of me kept I my love to thyself.
Now is my mind to a pass, my Lesbia, brought by thy treason,
Poem 88
TO GELLIUS.
What may he (Gellius!) do that ever for mother and sister
Itches and wakes thro' the nights, working wi' tunic bedoffed?
What may he do who nills his uncle ever be husband?
Wottest thou how much he ventures of sacrilege-sin?
Ventures he (0 Gellius!) what ne'er can ultimate Tethys
Wash from his soul, nor yet Ocean, watery sire.
For that of sin there's naught wherewith this sin can exceed he
. . . . his head on himself.
Poem 89
ON GELLIUS.
Gellius is lean: Why not? For him so easy a mother
Lives, and a sister so boon, bonny and buxom to boot,
Uncle so kindly good and all things full of his lady-
Cousins, how can he cease leanest of lankies to be?
Albeit, touch he naught save that whose touch is a scandal,
Soon shall thou find wherefor he be as lean as thou like.
Poem 90
ON GELLIUS.
Born be a Magus, got by Gellius out of his mother
(Marriage nefand!) who shall Persian augury learn.
Needs it a Magus begot of son upon mother who bare him,
If that impious faith, Persian religion be fact,
So may their issue adore busy gods with recognised verses
Melting in altar-flame fatness contained by the caul.
Poem 91
TO GELLIUS.
Not for due cause I hoped to find thee (Gellius!) faithful
In this saddest our love, love that is lost and forlore,
Or fro' my wotting thee well or ever believing thee constant,
Or that thy mind could reject villany ever so vile,
But that because was she to thyself nor mother nor sister,
This same damsel whose Love me in its greatness devoured.
Yet though I had been joined wi' thee by amplest of usance,
Still could I never believe this was sufficient of cause.
Thou diddest deem it suffice: so great is thy pleasure in every
Crime wherein may be found somewhat enormous of guilt.
Poem 92
ON LESBIA.
Lesbia naggeth at me evermore and ne'er is she silent
Touching myself: May I die but that by Lesbia I'm loved.
What be the proof? I rail and retort like her and revile her
Carefully, yet may I die but that I love her with love.
Poem 93
ON JULIUS CAESAR.
Study I not o'ermuch to please thee (Caesar!) and court thee,
Nor do I care e'en to know an thou be white or be black.
Poem 94
AGAINST MENTULA (MAMURRA).
Mentula wooeth much: much wooeth he, be assurd.
That is, e'en as they say, the Pot gathers leeks for the pot.
Poem 95
ON THE "ZMYRNA" OF THE POET CINNA.
"Zmyrna" begun erstwhile nine harvests past by my Cinna
Publisht appears when now nine of his winters be gone;
Thousands fifty of lines meanwhile Hortensius in single
[gap in text]
"Zmyrna" shall travel afar as the hollow breakers of Satrax,
"Zmyrna" by ages grey lastingly shall be perused.
But upon Padus' brink shall die Volusius his annals
And to the mackerel oft loose-fitting jacket afford.
Dear to my heart are aye the lightest works of my comrade,
Leave I the mob to enjoy tumidest Antimachus.
Poem 96
TO CALVUS ANENT DEAD QUINTILIA.
If to the dumb deaf tomb can aught or grateful or pleasing
(Calvus!) ever accrue rising from out of our dule,
Wherewith yearning desire renews our loves in the bygone,
And for long friendships lost many a tear must be shed;
Certs, never so much for doom of premature death-day
Must thy Quintilia mourn as she is joyed by thy love.
Poem 97
ON AEMILIUS THE FOUL.
Never (so love me the Gods!) deemed I 'twas preference matter
Or Aemilius' mouth choose I to smell or his . . . .
Nothing is this more clean, uncleaner nothing that other,
Yet I ajudge . . . . cleaner and nicer to be;
For while this one lacks teeth, that one has cubit-long tushes,
Set in their battered gums favouring a muddy old box,
Not to say aught of gape like wide-cleft gap of a she-mule
Whenas in summer-heat wont peradventure to stale.
Yet has he many a motte and holds himself to be handsome
Why wi' the baker's ass is he not bound to the mill?
Him if a damsel kiss we fain must think she be ready
With her fair lips . . . .
Poem 98
TO VICTIUS THE STINKARD.
Rightly of thee may be said, an of any, (thou stinkingest Victius!)
Whatso wont we to say touching the praters and prigs.
Thou wi' that tongue o' thine own, if granted occasion availest
Brogues of the cowherds to kiss, also their . . . .
Wouldst thou undo us all with a thorough undoing (0 Victius!)
Open thy gape :thereby all shall be wholly undone.
Poem 99
TO JUVENTIUS.
E'en as thou played'st, from thee snatched I (0 honied Juventius!)
Kisslet of savour so sweet sweetest Ambrosia unknows.
Yet was the theft nowise scot-free, for more than an hour I
Clearly remember me fixt hanging from crest of the Cross,
Whatwhile I purged my sin unto thee nor with any weeping
Tittle of cruel despite such as be thine could I 'bate.
For that no sooner done thou washed thy liplets with many
Drops which thy fingers did wipe, using their every joint,
Lest of our mouths conjoined remain there aught by the contact
Like unto slaver foul shed by the butterd bun.
Further, wretchedmost me betrayed to unfriendliest Love-god
Never thou ceased'st to pain hurting with every harm,
So that my taste be turned and kisses ambrosial erstwhile
Even than hellebore-juice bitterest bitterer grow.
Seeing such pangs as these prepared for unfortunate lover,
After this never again kiss will I venture to snatch.
Poem 100
ON CAELIUS AND QUINTIUS.
Caelius Aufilnus and Quintius Aufilna,
Love to the death, both swains bloom of the youth Veronese,
This woo'd brother and that sue'd sister: so might the matter
Claim to be titled wi' sooth fairest fraternalest tie.
Whom shall I favour the first? Thee (Caelius!) for thou hast provd
Singular friendship to us shown by the deeds it has done,
Whenas the flames insane had madded me, firing my marrow:
Caelius! happy be thou; ever be lusty in love.
Poem 101
ON THE BURIAL OF HIS BROTHER.
Faring thro' many a folk and plowing many a sea-plain
These sad funeral-rites (Brother!) to deal thee I come,
So wi' the latest boons to the dead bestowed I may gift thee,
And I may vainly address ashes that answer have none,
Sithence of thee, very thee, to deprive me Fortune behested,
Woe for thee, Brother forlore! Cruelly severed fro' me.
[gap in text]
Yet in the meanwhile now what olden usage of forbears
Brings as the boons that befit mournfullest funeral rites,
Thine be these gifts which flow with tear-flood shed by thy brother,
And, for ever and aye (Brother!) all hail and farewell.
Poem 102
TO CORNELIUS.
If by confiding friend aught e'er be trusted in silence,
Unto a man whose mind known is for worthiest trust,
Me shalt thou find no less than such to secrecy oath-bound,
(Cornelius!) and now hold me an Harpocrates.
Poem 103
TO SILO.
Or, d'ye hear, refund those ten sestertia (Silo!)
Then be thou e'en at thy will surly and savage o' mood:
Or, an thou love o'er-well those moneys, prithee no longer
Prove thee a pimp and withal surly and savage o' mood.
Poem 104
CONCERNING LESBIA.
Canst thou credit that I could avail to revile my life-love,
She who be dearer to me even than either my eyes?
Ne'er could I, nor an I could, should I so losingly love her:
But with Tappo thou dost design every monstrous deed.
Poem 105
ON MAMURRA.
Mentula fain would ascend Piplan mountain up-mounting:
Pitch him the Muses down headlong wi' forklets a-hurled.
Poem 106
THE AUCTIONEER AND THE FAIR BOY.
When with a pretty-faced boy we see one playing the Crier,
What can we wot except longs he for selling the same?
Poem 107
TO LESBIA RECONCILED.
An to one ever accrue any boon he lusted and longed for
Any time after despair, grateful it comes to his soul.
Thus 'tis grateful to us nor gold was ever so goodly,
When thou restorest thyself (Lesbia!) to loving-most me,
Self thou restorest unhoped, and after despair thou returnest.
Oh the fair light of a Day noted with notabler white!
Where lives a happier man than myself orthis being won me
Who shall e'er boast that his life brought him more coveted lot?
Poem 108
ON COMINIUS.
If by the verdict o' folk thy hoary old age (0 Cominius!)
Filthy with fulsomest lust ever be doomed to the death,
Make I no manner of doubt but first thy tongue to the worthy
Ever a foe, cut out, ravening Vulture shall feed;
Gulp shall the Crow's black gorge those eye-balls dug from their sockets,
Guts of thee go to the dogs, all that remains to the wolves.
Poem 109
TO LESBIA ON HER VOW OF CONSTANCY.
Gladsome to me, 0 my life, this love whose offer thou deignest
Between us twain lively and lusty to last soothfast.
(Great Gods!) grant ye the boon that prove her promises loyal,
Saying her say in truth spoken with spirit sincere;
So be it lawful for us to protract through length of our life-tide
Mutual pact of our love, pledges of holy good will!
Poem 110
TO AUFILENA.
Aufilna! for aye good lasses are lauded as loyal:
Price of themselves they accept when they intend to perform.
All thou promised'st me in belying proves thee unfriendly,
For never giving and oft taking is deed illy done.
Either as honest to grant, or modest as never to promise,
Aufilna! were fair, but at the gifties to clutch
Fraudfully, viler seems than greed of greediest harlot
Who with her every limb maketh a whore of herself.
Poem 111
TO THE SAME.
Aufilna! to live content with only one husband,
Praise is and truest of praise ever bestowed upon wife.
Yet were it liefer to lie any wise with any for lover,
Than to be breeder of boys uncle as cousins begat.
Poem 112
ON NASO.
Great th'art (Naso!) as man, nor like thee many in greatness
Lower themselves (Naso!): great be thou, pathic to boot.
Poem 113
TO CINNA.
Pompey first being chosen Consul, twofold (O Cinna!)
Men for amours were famed: also when chosen again
Two they remained; but now is each one grown to a thousand
Gallants:fecundate aye springeth adultery's seed.
Poem 114
ON MAMURRA'S SQUANDERING.
For yon Firmian domain not falsely Mentula hight is
Richard, owning for self so many excellent things
Fish, fur, feather, all kinds, with prairie, corn-land, and ferals.
All no good: for th' outgoing, income immensely exceeds.
Therefore his grounds be rich own I, while he's but a pauper.
Laud we thy land while thou lackest joyance thereof.
Poem 115
OF THE SAME.
Mentula! masterest thou some thirty acres of grassland
Full told, forty of field soil; others are sized as the sea.
Why may he not surpass in his riches any a Crsus
Who in his one domain owns such abundance of good,
Grasslands, arable fields, vast woods and forest and marish
Yonder to Boreal-bounds trenching on Ocean tide?
Great are indeed all these, but thou by far be the greatest,
Never a man, but a great Mentula of menacing might.
Poem 116
TO GELLIUS THE CRITIC.
Seeking often in mind with spirit eager of study
How I could send thee songs chaunted of Battiads,
So thou be softened to us, nor any attempting thou venture
Shot of thy hostile shaft piercing me high as its head,
Now do I ken this toil with vainest purpose was taken,
(Gellius!) nor herein aught have our prayers availd.
Therefore we'll parry with cloak what shafts thou shootest against us;
And by our bolts transfixt, penalty due thou shalt pay.
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